Do you have old Plymouth telephone books that date before 1970 and don’t know what to do with them? Then contact the Library. The Plymouth Collection -- the local history and genealogy resource of the Plymouth Public Library -- is collectingvintage Plymouth telephone books. Phone books are a fabulous source of information for both genealogists and local history researchers for these books annually include names, addresses, phone numbers, businesses, social groups, advertisements, maps, clubs and organizations of a community.

Historically, the first phone book in the United States was a single 14 cm. x 21 cm. sheet which was issued in New Haven, CT in 1878. The oldest telephone books usually had nothing but text and decorative borders on the cover. By the 1920s, simple logos and two-color pictorial ads often appeared. In the 1940s, many phone books showed the allegorical "Spirit of Communications" figure. It was the late 1950s when most U.S. phone books started having full-color pictorial covers.

The Plymouth Collection houses the library's collection of over 1200 items relating to Plymouth history, the descendants of the Mayflower Pilgrims, as well as many other immigrants who settled in the area. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Plymouth attracted and assimilated a post-Yankee wave of Italian, Portugese, German and French immigrants through the largest rope manufacturing company in the world. By the end of the 20th century, Plymouth had grown from a mill town of 9,500 residents to a sprawling community of more than 50,000. The collection includes books, maps, vertical files, annual Town Reports (1865-present), Old Colony Memorial (1822-present) microfilm, and access to genealogy databases.

If you have any questions, contact the Library at 508-830-4250; TTY 508-747-5882 or visit the Library’s website at www.plymouthpubliclibrary.org.