Scope of the Database

Go to: France - the Germanies - United Kingdom - United States

Types of Records

• Short-Form Records (S)

These abbreviated records give, at a minimum, the company name, date and year of incorporation, and line of business.  Depending on the source of the information, further details may be included.  For Britain, France, and the Germanies, the short-form records are not based on actual charters, so the information in some cases is quite limited.  For the U.S., most of the short-form records are derived from full charters.  In addition to the minimum data, these records give certain information about the corporation's initial capital and the minimum capital required to organize the company.

• Long-Form Records (L)

These records are based on published corporate charters (for the U.S., France, and the Germanies) or on articles of association (from the Public Record Office for Britain).  All the relevant information that is available in these documents has been entered.

• Partial Records (P)

These records will become long-form records but are currently incomplete. 

• Second Records (2)

These records give subsequent company names and refer the browser to the company's main record for details.

• [add note about mutual companies]

Summary of Coverage rev. 7/22/02

* To be expanded to 5%.

France (560)

Short-form records (376):  all companies incorporated in France from 1825 through 1867, when general incorporation began.

Long-form and partial records (131 + 53):  all companies chartered from 1825 to 1835 and 7 of 14 companies from 1836 as well as in 1845, 1855, 1865.   [We will add 1850 and 1860 if time (i.e., funding) permits.]

The German States (656)

Short-form records (446): [describe coverage of countries by year]

Long-form records (210): consult chart.

United Kingdom (4,502)

Short-form records (4,415):  These are based on the various "returns" published in the British Parliamentary Papers after the first general-incorporation law in 1844 and on a few published sources.  We have not been able to find systematic information on companies chartered by special act before 1844. [summarize differences by industry]

Long-form and partial records (87):  The aim is to do a 5% sample of the total (or 228).  The long-form records and partial records that have been completed to date are for the years indicated in the table to the right:

Year No. Year No. 1845 8 1855 7 1846 2 1856 3 1847 2 1857 3 1850 3 1858 2 1851 1 1859 3 1852 1 1860 14 1853 1 1865 35 1854 1 1870 1

United States (4,236)

[summarize in broad strokes].  To see a chart that summarizes the coverage by year and state, click here.  Detailed descriptions appear below. 

Short-form records (2,684):  The original plan was to prepare short-form records for all companies incorporated by special charter in all states and territories in 1825, 1845, 1855, and 1865.  To date, we have completed short-form records for the following states and years (excluding, of course, years before they became territories or states):

Alabama (1825, 1845, 1855) Arizona (1865) Arkansas (1855) California (1855, 1865, no charters) Colorado (1865) Connecticut -- complete  Delaware (1845, 1855) Florida (1825, 1845, 1855) Georgia (1855) Idaho (1865) Illinois (1825, 1845, 1855, partial 1865) Indiana -- complete Iowa (1854, 1864) Kansas (1855) Kentucky -- complete Louisiana -- complete  Maine (1825, 1855) Maryland (1854) Massachusetts -- complete Michigan (1825, 1855)

Minnesota (1855, 1865) Mississippi -- complete Missouri - 1825 (no charters), 1845, 1855, partial 1865 Nebraska (1855, 1865) New Hampshire (1855, 1865) New Jersey -- complete New Mexico (partial 1865) New York -- complete North Carolina (1855, 1865) Ohio -- complete Oregon (1864) Pennsylvania -- complete Rhode Island (1825, 1855) South Carolina -- complete Tennessee -- complete Utah (1855, no charters) Vermont -- complete Virginia (partial 1845, 1865) Washington (1855) Wisconsin (1855, 1865)

 

We have not yet entered records for the following states and years:

Alabama (1865) Arkansas (1825, 1845, 1865) Delaware (1825, 1865) Florida (1865) Georgia (1825, 1845, 1865) Illinois (partial 1865) Iowa (1845) Kansas (1865) Maine (1845, 1865) Maryland (1825, 1845, 1865) Michigan (1845, 1865) Montana (1864)

Nevada (1865) New Hampshire (1825, 1845) New Mexico (1855, partial 1865) North Carolina (1825, 1845) Oregon (1845, 1855) Rhode Island (1845, 1865) Texas (1845, 1855, 1864) Utah (1865) Virginia (partial 1845) Washington (1865) West Virginia (1865)

Long-form and partial records (1,550 + 2):  The original plan was to prepare long-form records for all companies incorporated by special charter in seven states—Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia—from 1825 through 1835 and in 1855, and for all companies incorporated in all states and territories in 1835.  To date, we have completed long-form records for the following years and states:

1825-1835 + 1855
Connecticut Louisiana Massachusetts New Jersey	Ohio South Carolina Virginia (except 1829, 1831-1833)
1835
Alabama Florida (no charters) Illinois Kentucky Maine Michigan Mississippi (no charters)	Missouri New York North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island Tennessee Vermont

We have not yet entered records for:

1825-1835 + 1855
Virginia (1829, 1831-1833)
1835
Arkansas Delaware Georgia Indiana	Maryland New Hampshire Texas (Republic of)

Special note:  The state legislative sessions did not necessarily run on a calendar-year basis, nor were they all held annually. If a session began and ended in different years, we do not record data for all charters passed during that session, but only for those charters passed in the target calendar year. If a legislature did not meet on an annual basis, we collect data either from the legislative session that includes a portion of a target year (first choice) or from the legislative session immediately prior to the target year. Example: A legislature met biennially during the 1850s. If the sessions began at the end of one year and ran through the early part of the next year (e.g., 1854-55 and 1856-57), we collect data from the session that included part of 1855 (in this case, 1854-55). If the legislature met only every other even-numbered year -- thus, not in our target year 1855 -- we collect data from the session held in the preceding year (1854). [explain treatment of territories]

Deficiencies in Coverage:  The coverage of charters in this database may be deficient in two ways.  First, we did not enter any data from some of the targeted legislative sessions (as indicated in the tables above) either because we could not obtain a copy of the volume or because we ran out of time (i.e., funding).  Second, we may have overlooked the occasional business charter in a given volume.  To find individual charters, we paged through the volumes looking at titles and margin notes for incorporating acts.   After we entered data, we checked the list of entered charters against the index to the volume of laws.  Some charters were embedded in general legislation, the title of which did not indicate that the statute also incorporated companies.  Some statutes also had misleading titles that hid the fact that the statute incorporated a business corporation.  Finally, many volumes did not have indexes against which we could check coverage.  Nevertheless, we are confident that we found almost all, if not all, of the business charters for the years we examined.

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