driverslicense

German drivers license - Bain (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• 1 older comment, and then…
• sahwise said:

  It looks like a passport. I wonder if they could use this in place of a passport in some cases.

• stumblng.tumblr said:

  I decided to do a bit of digging into the LOC photos posted here, as well as into some other materials, to see what I could find relating to the Bain News Service. This photo is a good start, because it shows us George Grantham Bain himself. You can see his signature in the bottom right hand corner of the document, which is from 1912. Here's a brief Wikipedia page about him: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grantham_Bain I should also mention this page that has information about the Bain collection: lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/ggbainhtml/ggbaintips.html It contains two GG Bain images that I couldn't find uploaded to Flickr: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.15074 (a photo of GGB undated) and hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.06606 (a caricature of GGB undated). Next, comes three photos that are a set: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163811426 www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163011685 www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163010885 They all show the same man (is he GGB? I don't think so) at the same machine. The first of the three shows the machine facing in a particular direction and also shows some menial peering out of a store room at the photographer. The second of the three shows the machine facing in a different direction and no menial. Someone has written across the top of the photo "Printing the Bain News Service photos" and has also written on the machine "Bain-McDonald auto-printer" (could the man in the photos be McDonald perhaps?). There's also an "X" placed over the store room area. The third of the three photos is the second photo again with bits blanked out. Next comes www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163507966 which is a 1910 subscription to GGB's service by a Canadian newspaper. Finally, there is www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163813254 which shows firemen on the roof of the Bain News Service Building in 1912, putting out a fire. (Was the building, perhaps, at the address shown in the preceding photo?)

• BobMeade said:

  ^thanks, that's good information.

• memos to the future said:

  interesting to see mr. bain, a new york photographer from chicago, getting a german driving license. I suspect he had to be fluent in german to get it. the license isn't issued by an equivalent to the modern DMV (or KBA in germany) but the local Hamburg police. the stamp with the three turrets, similar to the official sign of the free city, is noteworthy as it has been in use since 1412 until today. I've only seen one other handwritten german document of the time and that's a german passport hanging in the visitor area of the german embassy in new york city. it's dated from a similar or possibly even earlier time and authorizes the document to a gentleman with the expressed purpose of travelling to the united states (aka "Amerika").

• waynedeer1 said:

  Is this what the driver licenses still look like in Germany? What does a driver license in vancouver look like? I will be needing to get one soon since I will be moving there. Thank you for your help!