On March 13, 1876, a United States congressional resolution promoted gathering of local histories by communities to commemorate the centennial of independence.
A number of publishers gathered these histories and recorded additional biographies to sell in most cases to the communities they described.
These local histories now provide useful primary data for contemporary historians and genealogists.
The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company was a major contributor with scores of titles of the form "A biographical Record of ..." with the name of a county in Iowa, Illinois or Ohio appended.
The company later extended to include locations as far away as California and British Columbia.