At the dawn of the 1900s, America was being knit together like never before. The telegraph, railroad, and telephone had become powerful tools for shrinking the enormous distances that stretched across the country, all while the nation pressed further westward.
Decades of relentless industrialization had made the USA wealthier than at any point in its history, and a naval triumph over Spain had firmly established it as an emerging world power. However, trouble was brewing beneath the surface.
The growth of America's towns and cities had been remarkable—and perfectly natural. What also surged, though, was criminal activity. These sprawling urban hubs, simmering with ethnic tensions among various groups, became hotbeds of conflict, forcing the state to find solutions to contain the mounting unrest.
Factory bosses and striking workers were locked in violent confrontations that had become almost routine. Yet this bloodshed only scratched the surface. Across the nation, corruption, white-collar offenses, and a whole range of other criminal enterprises ran rampant.
By 1908, the country was clearly in need of a specialized law enforcement body to protect its interests. Federal crimes were being handled by private investigators or detectives borrowed from other federal agencies—a makeshift arrangement that underscored just how urgently the Department of Justice (DOJ) needed its own dedicated investigative force.
This patchwork system was a source of deep frustration for Charles J. Bonaparte, who served as U.S. Attorney General at the time. Resolved to give the DOJ its own capability for investigating federal law violations, Bonaparte took decisive action. On July 26, 1908, he established the office of the Chief Examiner, directing 34 freshly appointed federal detectives to report to Stanley W. Finch, who held the title of Chief Examiner under the Department of Justice.
In time, the Office of the Chief Examiner would be rechristened the Bureau of Investigation, before ultimately becoming the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935.