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City directories provided important information for the original users and they remain an excellent resource for urban historians. Because cities published them annually, directories are a window onto the residential and business activity of their community at a particular moment in time. For example, this Directory for Greenfield, Montague, and Deerfield in 1906 reveals growing ethnic diversity by recording the presence of Eastern European immigrants in this area. It also provides information about consumer culture through the advertisements that fill its pages. And, it heralds the growing use of a revolutionary form of communication: the telephone.

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