We were thinking of a different point in the past and the technology.
You were thinking about 1850’s. (When the article was about) I was thinking 1950’s which I can relate to. smile.
Sorry.
I carried a very large print catalog (25#) from 1972 to 1986. (reference to $50 plate charge was then)
I ran a catalog and advertising department for 5-1/2 years many years later. Also created and maintained a website then.
I was thinking about all the way up until the computer revolution finally sunk into government. In most places records were handled by hand by one person, at best a handful, and the records were only as good as that person. Nobody proof read, errors were only found if somebody suddenly cared about that record. By and large these systems didn’t change between the 1400s and the 1980s, the big revolution was typewriters so we were no longer reliant on Millie having decent handwriting. And the lack of reliability spawned an entire culture of people and communities keeping their own record, the Family Tree in the Bible, wedding and baptismal records in the church. All those things genealogists rely on largely went in place because record keeping was so bad, and have largely gone away in the last few decades because record keeping is actually useful now.