Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.

When Lewis Tappan founded the Mercantile Agency in 1841, he believed that his new venture could standardize the flow of credit in the United States. From his own experience as a merchant, Tappan saw the need for a professionally-managed credit system, with credit decisions based upon sound information. During the first half of the 19th century, wholesale commission merchants based in the large urban cities were increasingly providing goods and supplies to rural merchants, jobbers, and general stores located miles away in the interior of the country. The wholesale commission merchants indiscriminately extended credit to country merchants and jobbers. They rarely had a choice, because sound information about credit-worthiness was hard to come by and frequently inaccurate. Tappan believed that if this information could be centralized, then the flow of credit would become more efficient. This would alleviate the problems of the urban commission merchants and provide more flexibility for honest and hard-working jobbers and country store merchants.

Tappan soon established a network of local correspondents, who gathered and reported business information on merchants and jobbers in their area. Twice a year, the correspondents sent their reports to the Mercantile Agency's headquarters in New York City, where clerks recorded the information into large ledger books. The correspondents were expected to report on a potential borrower's trade style, capital, present location and length of residence, and what medium they operated on most frequently. The agency's correspondents were typically lawyers who lived in the area they covered, and Tappan expected them to be men of high moral standing in their communities. The correspondents were not compensated directly by the Mercantile Agency, instead they were granted exclusive rights to collect the debts owed to Tappan's subscribers. The agency sold its credit information to subscribers for a fee. The subscription fee was tiered based upon the subscriber's annual earnings. By 1843, Lewis Tappan had over one hundred and fifty correspondents in the northeast.

Tappan realized that, in order to hold off its competitors, the agency would need to expand quickly to the west and south. In 1849, Tappan turned control of the Mercantile Agency over to Benjamin Douglass, one of his clerks. Douglass's past business experience as a cotton trader working in the south and the Mississippi Valley would be an immense help to the agency's expansion. After Lewis Tappan retired in 1849, his brother Arthur Tappan ran the firm in partnership with Douglass. Arthur sold his share of the firm to Benjamin Douglass in 1854.

During the mid-19th century, commerce in the United States continued to grow, and so the number of businesses that the Mercantile Agency needed to track also increased dramatically. Benjamin Douglass opened offices in important U. S. cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans, and internationally in London and Montreal. Douglass expanded the agency's coverage into the banking, fire insurance, and manufacturing industries. Douglass enacted a direct mail list for subscribers and also published the agency's first Reference Book. Subscribers no longer had to visit the Mercantile Agency's offices in person; instead credit information was published in the Reference Book or the reports were mailed to subscribers. He also began recording business statistics.

In 1859 Benjamin Douglass turned over the Agency to his brother-in-law, Robert Graham Dun. Dun renamed the company R.G. Dun & Company. Douglass had married Dun's sister, Elizabeth, and Dun subsequently married Douglass's sister, also named Elizabeth. The company published its first credit reporting volume, the Dun Book, in 1859. The agency grew substantially under R.G. Dun's leadership during the second half of the 19th century. Dun slowly replaced the network of local correspondents with professional reporters. Dun also introduced the typewriter in an effort to streamline the information gathering and publication process. By the 1890s, R.G. Dun slowly relinquished control of the company to his nephew Robert Dun Douglass (Benjamin Douglass's son). R. G. Dun continued to play a strong role in his namesake firm until his death in 1900, but he was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations.

R.G. Dun & Company had many competitors during the 19th century, but the strongest was John M. Bradstreet & Sons Improved Mercantile and Law Agency for Cities. Founded in 1849 in Cincinnati, Ohio by John M. Bradstreet, it was R.G. Dun & Co.'s major rival. In 1851, Bradstreet published the first commercial credit rating book. He found a niche market by sending information to his subscribers, rather than requiring that they come to his office. In 1855, Bradstreet relocated his company from Ohio to New York City. He provided a rating key to credit worthiness of merchants in cities, which was a departure from R.G. Dun's focus on country merchants and jobbers. This new conduit for disseminating information changed credit reporting. R. G. Dun & Co.'s aggressive expansion efforts were partly in response to the threat perceived from this rival. However, in the long run, J. M. Bradstreet & Company could not compete with Dun's vast network. John M. Bradstreet died in 1863 and was succeeded by his son Henry.

The two firms continued to grow during the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1930, R.G. Dun & Co. merged with the National Credit Office, a credit reporting service focused on the health of industries as a whole. Arthur Dare Whiteside of the National Credit Office became chief executive officer of the new company. The Great Depression was then at its height when the companies merged in 1933 to become Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. The merger probably saved both companies from failure. Both firms offered similar services, so their merger was expected to result in greater resources provided to customers. Under Whiteside's leadership, Dun & Bradstreet Corp. moved from selling products to customers to providing services for customers. This service allowed customers to monitor their own accounts, while also modernizing the credit reporting industry.