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Drama / Global Nineteenth Century Studies 313: Searching for the Makers

Census Resources

Census records can be used to track and estimate professions related to textiles and clothing manufacture.

Ancestry Library Edition - The library edition of Ancestry provides access to historical US  federal census, as well as many state census records through 1950.

familysearch.org - Setting up a free account on Family Search allows you to search their vast collection of digitized records including census records, family histories, including many in the textile and clothing trades, and town histories that document the rise and fall of textile industries in towns and cities.

Directories

Polk's Poughkeepsie City Directory, 1843-1992, Main F129.P9 P72 - The Vassar Library has most of the volumes of this annual directory in print.  A selection of Polk's New York City Directories is included in the Gateway to North America: People, Places and Organizations of 19th Century New York.

The Vassar Libraries' microfilm of Poughkeepsie newspapers is located in the Microtext Room, item #4268.

Newspapers

The following newspapers are particularly useful for looking at the textile and clothing industries in New York state in the 19th and 20th centuries. For a full listing of databases that contain newspapers and magazines, chose resource type: newspapers and magazines in the Database Directory section of the library website or search for a newspaper title in the Journal Finder.

America's Historical Newspapers - includes the New York Herald

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper - Microfilm 314