Goldsmiths' Kress Collection

This collection is a combination of the contents of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London and the Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Graduate School of Business Administration in Boston,  with materials supplemented from the Seligman Collection in the Butler Library at Columbia University and from the Sterling Library at Yale University.

It amounts to almost 60,000 documents and the full text of all these documents has been reproduced on 4,000 reels of microfilm. Materials filmed include printed books, pamphlets, proclamations, government publications and broadsides printed between 1460 and 1860. This is the single most comprehensive and valuable collection in existence for researching the literature of economics and business and is also a major resource for the study of political and social history. It includes some material printed in non-English languages. 

Its interest goes far beyond that of the economic historian. The collection also includes works on usury, demographic patterns in 18th century England, the textile industry and technological advance, Kameralwissenschaft, poverty and the work ethic, pre-Marxian socialism, Utopian socialism, to name but a few topics.

All titles in this collection are in the Catalogue. A search for the title "Goldsmiths' Kress" results in an alphabetical list of all titles in the collection. Each record contains a unique item number with which the pertinent microfilm can be located in the Microforms Room of the Library.

All the books available on microfilm and much more is now accessible online through the Making of the Modern World (MOMW) full-text database:  "The Making of the Modern World: Goldsmiths' Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850" provides digital facsimile images on every page of 61,000 works of literature on economic and business published from 1450 through 1850. Full-text searching on more than 12 million pages provides researchers unparalleled access to this vast collection of material on commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, trade and transport."