Her Bertillon is Only Skin Deep (Rochester, New York, 1908)

Twenty-seven-year-old house maid Ida Olliver apparently had her eye on a particular ring. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for sale, so in a moment of weakness, she pocketed it—a petit theft that landed her in a Rochester, New York, courtroom. It was an expensive offense. In April 1908, the judge sentenced her to 30 days in jail or a $30 fine. Since she didn’t have money to buy the “get-out-of-jail” card, she spent the rest of the month in the Monroe County Penitentiary. On April 20, officers from The Bureau of Identification measured Ida and created a “Bertillon card” that preserves part of Ida’s story for posterity.

(Bertillon, a French criminologist, developed a system to classify offenders. His system, which predated fingerprint classification, consisted of a mug shot and a series of measurements. Measurements such as wingspan, which was sometimes called “stretch,” were supposed to be unalterable and thus disguise-proof. Even after the advent of fingerprint classification in the early 1900s, identification cards continued to contain the Bertillon figures. Today, just the mugshot remains to remind the twenty-first century crime fighter of his forbears.)

Her inmate card reveals that Ida was a slight woman, standing five-foot-three and tipping the scales at a mere 98 pounds. She is not smiling on her mugshot, but if she were, her grin would be missing several teeth, perhaps the result of poor dental hygiene or fistfights or both. The description written by W. Mercel, the measurement bureau man responsible for recording the details, is mostly impersonal and non-judgmental, but his notes hint that he viewed Ms. Olliver as anything but a raving beauty: he describes her gaze as a “squint” and her right ear as “flared.”

Her expression is priceless: equal parts disgust, disbelief, and indignation.