In an age where a swipe of a finger unlocks your phone and terabytes of data fit in your pocket, it's easy to forget that information once lived on paper, in filing cabinets, and across entire floors of buildings. Before computers, storing and processing vast amounts of data was a manual, labor-intensive endeavor. Few examples illustrate this better than the FBI's Fingerprint Factory, which in the 1940s occupied more than 700 square meters and processed and stored fingerprints by the millions.
From Bureau of Investigation to FBI
The FBI was formed on July 26, 1908 as the "Bureau of Investigation". Over the years, it underwent several changes: it was associated with the Prohibition Bureau, became the Division of Investigation, and finally, in 1935, achieved independent status within the Department of Justice, adopting the name FBI we know today.
In the 1920s, the bureau had just 25 employees managing 800,000 fingerprints. But everything changed starting in 1940. The number of employees soared to 20,000, and the number of registered fingerprints exceeded 70 million. During World War II, the archive became so saturated that it had to be moved to a special warehouse with more than 700 square meters in the National Guard Armory in Washington D.C. The place was dubbed "The Fingerprint Factory".
Inside the Fingerprint Factory
Thanks to these photographs, we can take a detailed look inside this remarkable operation.
