I was talking to a coworker about these new phishing attacks that send your name and address and sometimes a picture of your house, and I was saying how creepy it is, and they told me that phonebooks were delivered to everyone and used to have like literally everyone in a city listed by last name with their phone number and address. Is that for real?
Phone books had your name and phone number. Some had your street address too.
Before that, there were books that even had your occupation.
Random directory example from 1886:
Last name, first name, occupation, street name, number.
1790…
<waves at likely a fellow genealogist!> :)