If "newspapers are the first rough draft of history," the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide is the first rough draft of Philadelphia's building history. Published weekly between January 1886 and November 1940, the Builders' Guide is unquestionably the single richest published source for documenting buildings in Philadelphia, containing hundreds of thousands of specific building references as well as statistical and editorial analysis of the building trades during the city's most dramatic period of growth.
The Builders' Guide provides unmatched detail of the activities of, and complex relationships between, architects, engineers, bankers, builders, developers, and tradesmen of all kinds from roofers, to plasterers, to garden suppliers, to gas fitters. In thousands of cases, the Builders Guide is the ONLY published source that links an architect, developer, or contractor with a specific building. This database is keyword searchable and a valuable resource to anyone interested in architectural history, real estate, or the history of a building.