Digital Economic History Library FRASER Adds More than 35,000 Items

Over the past year, FRASER, the St. Louis Fed’s unique digital library of U.S. economic, financial and banking history, has grown significantly, with more than 35,000 new items and nearly a million pages added. FRASER, originally created as a historical adjunct to the data in online database FRED, has now grown to a full digital library with documents that help explain the decisions that shaped the U.S. economy while shedding light on the people who made them.

In case you missed any of the highlights, here’s a quick roundup of major additions.

Federal Reserve Collections

The FRASER team has expanded Federal Reserve collections offering documents about the history and operations of the Federal Reserve System, which is made up of the Board of Governors, 12 regional Reserve banks and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

The expanded Monetary Policy Report collection includes the February 1980 report, the first submitted by then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker to Congress.

Reports and Minutes

Expanded were collections from the Board of Governors, such as the biannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress, meeting minutes (with several decades of minutes added), press releases and Federal Advisory Council minutes (1969-2025). The Federal Advisory Council, composed of one banking industry representative from each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts, consults with and advises the Board.

Thousands of new materials from across the Federal Reserve System were also added, including St. Louis Fed publications and new collections digitized in partnership with the Federal Reserve banks of Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York and Richmond.

Education and Statistics Publications

Federal Reserve Bank of New York comic books like these from 2008 (left) and 1984 are in a new FRASER collection of historical education publications.

In conjunction with the launch and expansion of economics and personal finance resources platform Federal Reserve Education (FRE.org), the FRASER team created a new collection of historical education publications from the 1970s to the present.

Through FRASER, data fans can also explore the more than 100,000 issues of Federal Reserve data publications known as statistical releases. These unique data publications cover data ranging from member bank reserve balances in the 1910s, to interest rates for jewelry store credit in the 1940s, to the latest 2026 industrial production data. New issues are regularly added to the collection as they are published by the Board of Governors, and missing issues are filled in from the archives whenever possible.

Historical Context Collections

Economic data, research and policy documents from across the U.S. government were also added over the past year. One highlight is the working papers, data releases and research journals digitized in partnership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

A new collection of Council of Economic Advisers members’ speeches was added and will continue to expand with new and historical materials from the National Archives, Library of Congress and presidential libraries.

The FRASER team also:

• Added decades of materials from the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau
• Added annual reports of the U.S. Mint and the Securities and Exchange Commission
• Created a new curated theme of historical Treasury Department materials

The FRASER team added more issues of commercial banking trade publications, including the Shipping and Commercial List.

FRASER’s holdings of historical commercial banking trade publications also were expanded with additional issues of Rand McNally Bankers’ Directory, Shipping and Commercial List and Bank and Quotation Record from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ongoing Updates and Access

Each year, FRASER adds not only brand-new digitized content from archives but also select newly released content from partners across the Federal Reserve and at U.S. agencies such as the Treasury, FDIC and Bureau of Labor Statistics. For instance, each January the prior year’s collection of speeches from the Board of Governors are added, along with speeches from many other current FOMC participants.

When the FRASER team adds new ongoing titles to the collection, they also work with partners to make it possible to continue to add future issues to FRASER. Some materials are added as soon as they’re made available, while others are added only after a delay. This allows FRASER to provide access to the broadest possible variety of materials while respecting partners’ copyright and communications preferences.

Stay up to date by subscribing to the monthly FRASER newsletter or follow the latest additions via the FRASER homepage.