A World War Two Mystery

Neighborhood fingerprint station Fingerprints are your identification and protection during wartime – have the entire family take theirs now! : War Identification Bureau – CDVO

I’ve never heard of this before. Wikipedia and Google came up blank.

Did these really exist?

UPDATE: Solved by elandes on Twitter, who sent me this link, which explains:

In July 1940, the federal government ordered all citizens to report to their local post office to be fingerprinted and the FBI accumulated a large number of citizen fingerprints.

Ah, the Post Office. That makes sense now.

When Nooks Were Places

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town … to count the many children reading library books

Stunning Photochrom Prints From Library Of Congress

The Library of Congress just spent our taxes in a way that we get maximum value from a government agency. I don’t think we’ve gotten this much bang for the buck since the old Space Age and NASA days. This is Big Big WIN!