Henry Millers News Pictures
Trio of photographs related to Fingerprinting at the National Division of Identification and Information, 1930
Silver prints (3)
Each 6 x 8 inches
With affixed caption labels verso.
With affixed caption labels verso.
Further images
Three photographs titled 'How Uncle Sam Fingerprints Its Undesirables' which show the fingerprinting operations of the Division of Identification and Information at the Department of Justice. The DOJ formed the...
Three photographs titled "How Uncle Sam Fingerprints Its Undesirables" which show the fingerprinting operations of the Division of Identification and Information at the Department of Justice. The DOJ formed the division in 1907 in order to provide a centralized reference of criminal fingerprints.
The early days of the DII were slightly confusing as the Bureau of Criminal Identification moved to Fort Leavenworth the year the DII was formed. Here it was staffed partially by inmates, and suspicions of tampering from Washington led to inconsistencies and a lack of communication between the two. It wasn't until 1924 that the DOJ's Leavenworth repository was transferred back to Washington D.C. and a truly centralized system was formed. Later that year an act of congress established the Identification Division of the FBI. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Bureau of Criminal Identification fingerprint repository and the US Justice Department's Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) fingerprint repositories were combined with fingerprint cards from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to form the nucleus of the FBI Identification Division fingerprint files which is shown here in these three photographs.
One image shows Fingerprinting Clerks, later known as "Fingerprint Examiners," in the Technical Section of the division. These clerks were partially responsible for processing the new arrivals, which reached 2000 cards daily by 1933. Another photograph shows technical experts A. J. Renoe and Eugene Van Buskirk who would have played some role in analysis. And the third shows two fingerprint employees "demonstrating the manner of taking fingerprints." The captions on the versos of these photographs claim that the division held approximately 1,900,000 fingerprints, a number that had grown to 9,500,000 by 1938.
The early days of the DII were slightly confusing as the Bureau of Criminal Identification moved to Fort Leavenworth the year the DII was formed. Here it was staffed partially by inmates, and suspicions of tampering from Washington led to inconsistencies and a lack of communication between the two. It wasn't until 1924 that the DOJ's Leavenworth repository was transferred back to Washington D.C. and a truly centralized system was formed. Later that year an act of congress established the Identification Division of the FBI. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Bureau of Criminal Identification fingerprint repository and the US Justice Department's Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) fingerprint repositories were combined with fingerprint cards from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to form the nucleus of the FBI Identification Division fingerprint files which is shown here in these three photographs.
One image shows Fingerprinting Clerks, later known as "Fingerprint Examiners," in the Technical Section of the division. These clerks were partially responsible for processing the new arrivals, which reached 2000 cards daily by 1933. Another photograph shows technical experts A. J. Renoe and Eugene Van Buskirk who would have played some role in analysis. And the third shows two fingerprint employees "demonstrating the manner of taking fingerprints." The captions on the versos of these photographs claim that the division held approximately 1,900,000 fingerprints, a number that had grown to 9,500,000 by 1938.