City and Telephone Directories

City and telephone directories allow you to look for individuals, families, or businesses to view such details as: addresses, occupations, and household residents. Observed broadly, they will also provide a community perspective. The following resources provide an inventory of the city and telephone directories available at the Library of Congress.

Resources

Library of Congress Digital Collections are free to view online. A selection of these resources is provided below with links to the home pages for each relevant archive. You can also explore the complete list of Digital Collections to find even more and see the latest additions.

U.S. Telephone Directory Collection
The Library of Congress's online collection of telephone directories represents the following states and localities: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the city of Chicago. The dates of the directories span most of the 20th century. The Library's United States telephone directory collection consists of 8,327 digitized reels of microfilm; of these, about 3,500 are presented in this collection.

For a convenient list of the digitized directories:

Click on the Collection Items tab.
Scroll down the sidebar until you see Location. On that list, click More Locations.
On this page, you can select the option to organize the location list alphabetically.
Now you can navigate all cities included in the digital collection. Once you select the city of interest, you can use the Sort By box in the top-right corner to arrange the directories for that city by date.

If you do not find the city of interest in the digital collection, explore the Research Guides tab to see indexed lists of the U.S. City Directories and U.S. Telephone Directories available in print and microform formats at the Library of Congress.

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are restricted and only available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

Ancestry Library Edition External This link opens in a new window
Ancestry Library Edition includes primary-source document images and database records such as: census, military, court, land, probate, church, directories, passenger lists, and more.

To enter the selected databases below, first click the Ancestry Library Edition External link above to establish a connection to the subscription database. Once you have done so, click on the desired database link to begin your research.

MyHeritage Library Edition External This link opens in a new window
The MyHeritage Library Edition features a focus on people-based records, which contain information about both everyday people and prominent individuals. This emphasis, plus the strength of the index, enables scholars to access information both about specialized topics (regions, time periods) as well as social, cultural, and political trends, with a wide scope. Location and keyword search options enable the researcher to directly access information about a specific region or topic.

To enter the selected databases below, first click the MyHeritage Library Edition External link above to establish a connection to the subscription database. Once you have done so, click on the desired database link to begin your research.

U.S. City Directories, 1860-1960 External

The Library of Congress makes available to the public an extensive collection of past and present city, telephone, and reverse telephone (criss-cross) directories. The following research guides provide indexed lists to the Libraries print and microform collections.

Directories By Address: Inventories of Library Collections
There are directories that organize alphabetically and there are directories that organize by street address. The Library has both types, but this guide is primarily an inventory of directory collections where the directories are organized by address.
United States: City and Telephone Directories
City and telephone directories are used to identify people and businesses from a specific time and place. This guide provides an index to the extensive collection of United States city and telephone directories available at the Library of Congress.

House History: A Guide to Uncovering the Stories of Local Buildings and Properties

Local History & Genealogy: Ask a Librarian

City and Telephone Directories

Resources