Library: Company Information: Company Histories

Historical Company Information

You can glean much helpful information by examining how companies project their identities and public images through their own versions of the past as well as discovering how others view them. The following sites will provide some insight into corporate histories.

Database Options

Gale Business: Insights This link opens in a new window A unique database that brings together a wide variety of resources that cover companies and industries.
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This innovative resource includes company profiles (with corporate parent/sibling relationships), industry rankings, products and brands, investment reports, industry statistics, financial ratios, case studies, and corporate chronologies and history. Coverage is from 1980-present.

1. Start by typing your company in the top search box.
2. When the Company Profile comes up, scroll to the middle of the page.
3. Under In-depth Articles, select either Company history or Chronology.

Company History

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window Nexis Uni™ features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.

1. From the Guided Search area, [What are you interested in?]. highlight Company Info.
2. In the next box, [Search in all Company Information for:], type your company. For example, Home Depot.
3. In the next box, [..and show me], use the drop-down box to highlight: All company information

4. From the column on the left, scroll down to: Sources.
5. Under Sources, highlight: Hoover's Company Records In-Depth-Records.
Note #1:
Verify you are selecting Hoover's Company Records In-Depth-Records, and NOT Hoover's Company Records - Basic Records.
Note #2:
Hoover's Company Records In-Depth-Records will not cover all companies.

6. From the Results screen, open any of the citations.
7. Once you open the record, scroll down until you find the section titled, History.

Company Dossier (NexisUni) This link opens in a new window
From the Menu drop down box at the top of the page, select: Company Dossier. Information is gathered from a wide array of sources, including: Standard and Poor's Corporate Descriptions, Hoover's Company Reports, Disclosure Reports and more. Subject areas include: Business & Financial News, U.S. and international company financial information, market research, industry reports, industry ratios, and SEC filings.

1. From the Find a Company page, type your company in the Company Name box.

Find a company

2 From the Snapshot screen, scroll to Company Information, then, Company History

Website options

Business History.com Compilation of content for primarily US business history. Searchable and browseable by subject facets. Also provides keyword search.
Business History: A Resource Guide The Library of Congress has gathered info of interest to researchers seeking historical information about an old company or an extinct firm. This guide primarily focuses on United States companies,
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1777-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada This online version of the "Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada," published by the Business Archives Section of the Society of American Archivists includes entries for companies that maintain their own historical records, as well as for those that contract with consulting firms. Also included are archives of professional associations. The directory is arranged alphabetically by corporation names and includes description and holdings information for the archives along with contact information.
Library of Congress: Guide to Business History Includes selected titles of books, primarily focusing on United States companies, and when available, links are included to online tables of contents, and indexes. Links are also included to selected Internet resources relating to business history.