OUR 100TH YEAR
Celebrating a Century
07/26/07
On
Thursday, we turned 99 years old and began
our 100th year of protecting the nation through
our investigations, intelligence work, and
law enforcement services.
You
might think we got our start battling gangsters
in the '20s and '30s and that J. Edgar Hoover
was our first director. But we actually trace
our beginnings to a forward-thinking attorney
general named Charles Bonaparte in the early
20th century.
His
story. Bonaparte had been tasked by President
Teddy Roosevelt to help battle a growing wave
of crime and corruption that was often beyond
the jurisdictional reach of state and local
authorities. But Bonaparte couldn't so much
as launch a case without hiring a detective
or borrowing an investigator from another
agency. What he needed, he realized, was his
own band of investigators.
And
so on July 26, 1908, he ordered the creation
of a "regular force of special agents"
to conduct investigations for the Department
of Justice and the Executive Branch. There
were 34 investigators in all—nine newly
hired detectives, 13 civil rights investigators,
and a dozen accountants—reporting to
his chief examiner Stanley Finch.
It
was an inauspicious start, to say the least.
Bonaparte had no idea whether his creation
would meet the Department's needs or be embraced
by Congress and the American people. He was
so unsure that he didn't even give this force
a name.
Bonaparte
need not have worried. Within two years, Congress
had substantially increased the new agency's
resources, personnel, and authority. And it
had a name—the Bureau of Investigation.
In 1935 it was officially named the "FBI."
Today,
the FBI is recognized worldwide as a premier
law enforcement and intelligence agency. It
has grown from 34 special agents to more than
30,000 agents and other professionals working
around the world. Throughout the past century,
the Bureau has successfully adapted to meet
the threat at hand—from gangsters to
spies…from mobsters to serial killers…from
white-collar criminals to terrorists and cyber
villains.
Over
the course of the coming year, we will celebrate
our 100th year on this website with some new
and improved features.
Today,
for example, we're launching a redesigned
History webpage
that includes a "This Week In FBI History"
area highlighting key moments in our past.
In
the coming months, we'll also:
