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The Trade and Professional Press

This chapter provides the first methodologically aware overview of the Victorian trade and professional press. It uses advertising directories to map the changing nature of the field, showing the different densities of periodical types over time and raising methodological questions about the reliability of data and claims derived from them, categorisation, the status differences between various kinds of knowledge and occupations, and the importance of the researcher’s positionality (especially with regards to emic and etic research procedures). Academic neglect of trade periodicals in favour of science and medicine is countered by a demonstration of the enormous importance of trade and mercantile periodicals to the press industry and of their huge diversity. Finally, standard press history is questioned by showing the small effects of the removal of the taxes on knowledge, and the significance instead of manufacturing methods and changes in the demands of society at large.