This book offers a detailed and comprehensive guide to contemporary
sources for research into the history of individual nineteenth-century
U.S. communities, large and small. The book is arranged topically
(covering demography, ethnicity and race, land use and settlement,
religion, education, politics and local government, industry, trade and
transportation, and poverty, health, and crime) and thus will be of
great use to those investigating particular historical themes at
national, state, or regional level. As well as examining a wide variety
of types of primary sources, published and unpublished, quantitative and
qualitative, available for the study of many places, the book also
provides information on certain specific sources and some individual
collections, in particular those of the National Archives.