EARLY DIRECTORIES OF THE BOROUGH

SCROLL DOWN FOR LINKS TO ALL AVAILABLE DIRECTORIES
Early directories listed both residents and businesses, same as today’s phone books.  However, the early directories for residents included the name of the primary resident, their profession (and company if they were an officer of that company), their street address, and the name of their spouse, if any.  If the resident’s business was at the same address, the business would be identifed along with its address; the residence would be listed as “do” (or ditto).  Children may or may not be listed depending on the year.  If so, they were on a separate line and listed sometimes as a boarder and sometimes identified as a student.  It was common for multiple familes to share a home, so many were identified as boarders, to differentiate from the primary resident, who may or may not have been the owner.

The directories available here have primarly been obtained from microfilm/microfiche records in the Allentown Library. The copies of the directories are images only; they were not translated in the Librrary using OCR to word-searchable files.

HCPA, through the research of a local genealogist, has images of directories for the following years.  1873/74 (Heffner –Z only), 1877/78, 1885, 1887, 1890, 1894, 1895, 1898, 1900, 1908-1922 (even years), 1921, 1925, 1926-1928, and 1929/30.

To avoid duplication, the directories have been posted to The Hopkin Thomas webpages by John McVeywith links here to those records

The directory for 1908 is also available in two other formats.  One format gives each page as a separate file – the title provides the starting name and ending name for that page/record.  This directory has also been “OCR’d”, converted into a WORD document, and edited for conversion errors.  This provides the ability to search the document for street addresses.   Click on the page link to access these additional formats.  The 1885 directory will be similary OCR’d – check back for progress.

1860 Business Directory
1877 J. H. Lant Directory
1890 Williams Catasauqua Directory
1894 Haines & Worman Directory
1895 Haines & Worman Directory
1898 Haines & Worman Directory
1900 Leader Directory
1908 Directory
1910 Directory
1912 Directory
1914 Directory
1920 Directory
1929 Directory