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MERCANTILE (or COMMERCIAL) AGENCIES

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 148 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MERCANTILE (or COMMERCIAL) AGENCIES , the name given in See also:America to organizations designed to collect, See also:record and distribute to See also:regular clients See also:information relative to the See also:standing of commercial firms. In See also:Great See also:Britain and some See also:European countries See also:trade protective See also:societies, composed of merchants and trades-men, are formed for the promotion of trade, and members ex-See also:change information regarding the standing of business houses. These societies had their origin in the associations formed in the See also:middle of the 19th See also:century for the purpose of disseminating information regarding bankruptcies, assignments and bills of See also:sale. The mercantile agency in the See also:United States is a much more comprehensive organization. It came into existence after the See also:financial crisis of 1837. Trade in the United States had become scattered over a wide territory. Communication was slow, and the See also:town See also:merchant was without adequate information as to the standing of many business men seeking See also:credit. Undoubtedly the severity of the collapse of 1837 was due in See also:part to the insufficiency of this information. New See also:York merchants, who had suffered so severely, determined to organize a See also:head-quarters where reports regarding the standing of customers could be exchanged. See also:Lewis Tappan (1788–1873), founder of the See also:Journal of See also:Commerce (1828) and a prominent See also:anti-See also:slavery See also:leader, undertook the See also:work, and established in New York, in 1841, the Mercantile Agency, the first organization of its See also:kind. The See also:system has been wonderfully See also:developed and extended since.

End of Article: MERCANTILE (or COMMERCIAL) AGENCIES

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