# "How to Take Fingerprints," Bureau of Investigation booklet, 1932 (FBI artifact)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/fbi-artifact-how-to-take-fingerprints-1932/

FBI photograph of the 1932 Government Printing Office booklet "How to Take Fingerprints," issued by the Bureau of Investigation for local peace officers. Hoover's foreword calls it "the fourth issue of this pamphlet."

The FBI's page quotes J. Edgar Hoover's foreword to the booklet, which describes it as "the fourth issue of this pamphlet," and refers to the Identification Division organized in 1924. The Bureau issued the booklet for local peace officers.

The photograph also shows objects that are not the Bureau booklet, among them a small Little Blue Book titled "How to Read Finger Prints" by C. Samuel Campbell and a boxed packet of transfer sheets; these are read from the photograph, and the FBI page does not describe them. The Bureau booklet's cover carries a stamp of the Sheriff's Office, Port Washington, Wisconsin.

A full-text copy of the booklet was not located. This page therefore rests on the FBI's photograph of the cover and on the foreword the FBI quotes, and says nothing about the contents.

**Object:** Printed booklet, cover  
**Maker:** U.S. Government Printing Office, for the U.S. Bureau of Investigation  
**Date:** 1932  
**Provenance:** held by the FBI  
**Appears in:** FBI, History: Artifacts

## Sources

- FBI, History: Artifacts: https://www.fbi.gov/history/artifacts/how-to-take-fingerprints-instruction-book