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## The Technological Context: Before and After 1934
The year 1934 sits at an interesting moment in the history of forensic identification. The methods available were more sophisticated than any that had existed a generation earlier. They were also far less powerful than what would be available a generation later.
The fingerprint system — the Henry classification method, the manual comparison of minutiae — was the gold standard of individual identification. It was more reliable than any photograph-based system and far more specific than any system based on physical description. The FBI’s investment in fingerprint infrastructure throughout the 1930s reflected a correct understanding that fingerprints were the most powerful identification tool available.
But fingerprints had limitations that the 1934 technology could not fully compensate for. They required that the person be in the database — a previous arrest or deliberate registration. They required legible impressions at both ends of the comparison — known and questioned. And they required human examination of potentially ambiguous material, with the attendant possibility of examiner error.
Blood typing was available in 1934 but could only establish category membership, not individual identity. Hair and fiber analysis was in its infancy. Ballistic analysis existed but was more reliable for some questions than others.
DNA analysis — the tool that could definitively answer the questions about Dillinger’s identity that fingerprints addressed in 1934, and that could address questions about his remains today — did not exist. The double helix structure of DNA would not be described until 1953. DNA profiling for forensic purposes would not be developed until 1984, fifty years after the Biograph shooting.