1841/00/00 |
The Mercantile Agency is founded by Lewis Tappen to keep track of the honesty and reliability of business executives. |
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1841/00/00 |
Abe Lincoln sends a field report to the Mercantile Agency on the reliability of certain businessmen. Lincoln's report in the R G Dun and Company archive has been scraped off the page, apparently with a razor blade. |
History |
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1849/00/00 |
Benjamin Douglass, a clerk in the agency, becomes a partner and expands the firm to include a network of offices supplying information. Local credit reporters are hired for the offices to investigate and report on businesses. |
History |
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1851/00/00 |
Robert Dun is hired as a clerk at the Mercantile Agency. |
History |
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1859/00/00 |
Robert Dun succeeds Douglass as partner, continuing the expansion across the United States and abroad. Under his leadership, the company, known as R G Dun and Company, publishes credit status reports and reference books for distribution. |
History |
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1859/00/00 |
The Grant Leather Store at 120-122 South Main Street in Galena, Illinois, receives two 'good', one 'very fair' and one 'fair' rating from B Douglass and Co, 314 Broadway, New York. |
Reviewer |
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J R Grant Leather Store |
Galena, IL |
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1863/06/00 |
R G Dun and Co reports that produce merchant JD Rockefeller "is not much of a businessman, but had some capital, it is said, advanced by his father, who is reputed well off." JDR had borrowed $1,000 from his father, a conman, at 10 percent interest. |
Reviewer |
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1873/06/00 |
R G Dun and Company identify one storekeeper in Halifax County, North Carolina as a "purchaser of stolen goods, a great scamp." |
Reviewer |
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1893/00/00 |
R G Dun and Co inaugurate a weekly report of business conditions called "Dun's Review". Although R G Dun and Company is an international business, Dun maintains a home on Madison Avenue in New York City, close to the firm's original home and headquarters. |
History |
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1913/00/00 |
R G Dun and Company buy a large empty lot on Nevins and Butler streets in Gowanus that had been used by the Halstead Company as a lumber yard to relocate their presses from Manhattan. |
Owner |
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R G Dun and Company Building |
New York City |
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1933/00/00 |
R G Dun and Company merge with the John M Bradstreet Company to form Dun and Bradstreet. |
End |
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R G Dun and Company Building |
New York City |
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1962/00/00 |
The Dun and Bradstreet Corporation donates the R G Dun and Company archives to Harvard University. The collection consists of 2,522 volumes of handwritten credit reports on individuals and firms, Reports date from the 1840s to the early 1880s. |
History |
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