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What year did Oregon start issuing drivers’ licenses? Was this the first form of identification carried by local citizens? What year did Social Security cards start being issued? Before this did people carry their birth certificates around with them or was there not a need for self identification? — Al, Selma The first automobile arrived in Oregon in 1899, and the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services agency began a process for registering vehicles in 1905, according to DMV. But it wasn’t until the 1930s that DMV began testing and licensing drivers. Oregon lagged behind other states, such as Massachusetts and Missouri, which required drivers to have licenses beginning in 1903. However, drivers didn’t have to pass a driving test to get a license at that time, according to www.history.com. South Dakota was the last state to begin issuing drivers’ licenses, which it did in 1954, www.history.com reports. When the Social Security system was forming in the 1930s, the Social Security Board didn’t have a network of field offices. In 1936, the board contracted with the U.S. Postal Service to distribute Social Security application forms to employers. Local post offices often also typed up the new Social Security cards, which listed the person’s name and their new Social Security identification number, according to the Social Security Administration. As for birth certificates, Oregon didn’t begin registering births at the state level until 1903. Birth certificates were issued earlier in the eastern part of the United States. New England states were divided into townships, and those local units of government kept birth records, according to Anne Billeter, director of the Jackson County Genealogy Library. Billeter said she doesn’t know of any form of identification that was carried by a broad section of the population before more modern forms of identification like drivers’ licenses were created. “We were much more trusting in many ways,” she says. “When someone said they were who they said they were, we believed them.” Billeter said her own mother lacked a birth certificate. To prove her age and be eligible for Social Security, she had her older sister testify about her birth. Billeter’s mother then received a delayed birth certificate. Identification would seem critical in certain circumstances, such as taking out a large loan. But Steven Kochevar, who wrote a 2013 research paper for Yale Law School, looked at early banking in New England and found mortgage documents showing multiple people had to be present for the signing of loans made to the general public. Early East Coast banks were often founded by elite members of the community who then made loans to other elites in their business and social circles. In the 1830s, more democratic types of banks emerged. They took deposits of as little as $1 and made loans to a cross section of the community, including blacksmiths, grocery store owners, builders and carvers, Kochevar found. A document from his research shows that an 1847 mortgage loan of $1,000 was signed by the person taking out the loan, the justice of the peace, the town clerk and a fourth person who served as one of the witnesses. One type of early identification used by some companies was a worker identification certificate. Known, respectable people would vouch for a prospective employee, and if the person got hired, he or she would be issued a worker identification certificate. A 1906 worker identification certificate for a canal commission listed information like the person’s name, occupation, nationality, height, weight, age, build, complexion and eye, hair and beard color. From the late 1700s into the 1940s, American sailors were issued seamen protection papers so they wouldn’t be taken and pressed into services on other ships, especially British ships around the time of the War of 1812. Some sailors got tattoos, so the description of the tattoo could be listed on their protection papers as identifying marks. While most Americans could walk around freely without identification papers, the situation was far different for African Americans for much of the nation’s history. Slaves who left their home plantation — for example when they were hired out — were required to carry written slave passes or metal identification tags that were similar to soldiers’ dog tags. The tags were typically stamped with the person’s occupation and the year he or she was hired out, according to the Smithsonian magazine. Slaves who escaped, were freed or bought their own freedom would try to get freedom papers or certificates of freedom. They lived in constant fear of being kidnapped and sold into slavery, according to the University of Pittsburgh. Free African Americans in Pennsylvania, for example, would go to court and apply for a certificate of freedom. They had to prove they were born free or had been freed, often using legal documents like manumission or emancipation papers. If the court was satisfied, it would issue a certificate with a detailed description of the person, including skin shade, hair texture and any scars, according to the University of Pittsburgh. Because kidnappers might find and destroy the free person’s papers, free African Americans often registered their papers with a county deeds office, the university said. Sometimes free people without legal papers would be confined in jails on suspicion of being escaped slaves. They would have to try and get witnesses to come to their defense and swear that they were in fact free, the university said. Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.