The SSN: A History Lesson

Regular readers of my column know that I try to avoid the use of Social Security jargon, abbreviations and acronyms as much as possible. That even goes as far as the name of the agency that runs the Social Security program. Although I must frequently do it, I just don’t like referring to the SSA (that stands for Social Security Administration) because most people have never heard of it. For example, everyone knows the FBI, or the IRS, or NASA. But if I hadn’t just told you that the SSA was the Social Security Administration, would you have known it?

On the other hand, there is one Social Security-related abbreviation that I think almost everyone knows: SSN, which of course stands for the Social Security number. And in today’s column, I’m going to give a little history about that ubiquitous number and the little paper card we all have that displays that number.

People sometimes ask me who got the first Social Security card. And they are also curious to know what the lowest Social Security number ever issued was -- and who got it. They usually assume that the person who got the first Social Security card and the person who got the lowest number are one and the same. But that’s not the case. The history of the SSN makes for an interesting story.

When Social Security numbers were first issued in 1936, the SSA did not yet have a network of field offices, so the agency contracted with the U.S. Postal Service to distribute and assign the first batch of Social Security numbers through its 45,000 local post offices around the country. Of these 45,000 post offices, 1,074 were also designated as “typing centers” where the cards themselves were prepared.

Because of that, the best that SSA historians can say with certainty is that the first SSN was issued sometime in mid-November 1936 from one of those 1,074 post offices to someone whose identity and SSN are unknown. Thousand of Social Security numbers and cards were probably issued on that day, so there is simply no way to tell who got the first one.

The SSA does know, however, who received the Social Security card with the lowest number. They tried to make a bit of a public relations fuss over it, but it didn’t work out as the agency’s flacks planned.

SSNs were grouped by the first three digits of the number (called the area number) and assigned geographically starting in the Northeast, moving down the Eastern Seaboard and then across the country to the West. Although instead of starting in Maine (the most northeasterly state), they gave “001” numbers to New Hampshire. That’s because the plan was to give card number 00101-0001 to John G. Winant, who was a former governor of New Hampshire and was at the time the chairman of the Social Security Board (the forerunner of the Social Security Administration). But Winant turned down the honor.

Then it was offered to the head of the agency’s regional office for the northeastern United States, but he also said no. They tried to designate a couple other officials for the alleged honor, but with no luck. In frustration, the agency’s PR people nixed their plans for a ceremonial first “official” SSN recipient. So instead, they just decided to issue card number 001-01-0001 to the first Social Security number applicant from New Hampshire. This proved to be Grace D. Owen of Concord, New Hampshire, who applied for her number on Nov. 24, 1936.

There is one more little twist to this story. If you do some research into old press reports, you may find a story that says the very first Social Security card was issued to John Sweeney of New Rochelle, New York.

What actually happened is this. All the SSN records prepared by post offices were shipped to the SSA’s headquarters in Baltimore. One of their first jobs was to create an official Social Security record (primarily to track earnings) for each SSN issued. When the first batch of SSN records came in from the postal service, the agency’s head of accounting operations pulled the top card off the pile and declared it to be the official first Social Security record. It happened to be card number 055-09-0001 belonging to the aforementioned Mr. Sweeney. The next day, newspapers around the country announced that Sweeney had been issued the first SSN. That wasn’t quite right. It would be more accurate to say that the first Social Security “earnings record” was established for John Sweeney. But because those records were invisible to the public and the Social Security card was a very visible token of the program, the newspapers overlooked the nuance and John Sweeney had his 15 minutes of fame in 1936.

But neither 001-01-0001 nor 055-09-0001 is the most wellknown Social Security number. That honor belongs to 078-05-1120.

In 1938, a wallet manufacturer in New York decided to promote its product by showing how the still relatively new Social Security card would fit into its wallets. The president of the company thought it would be a bright idea to insert a sample for display purposes in each wallet. His next not-so-smart idea was to put a real Social Security number on the display card. The number shown on the card, 078-005-1120, actually belonged to the president’s secretary, a woman named Hilda Witcher.

The wallets were sold by Woolworth stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red and had the word “specimen” written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own! In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda’s number. The SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Witcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported what became known as the “Woolworth number” as their SSN. In fact, as late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be trying to use Hilda’s original SSN.

By the way, some of you may be wondering how I could be giving real names and real Social Security numbers in this column. First, the people mentioned have all long since passed away. Second, the SSA has flagged those SSNs (and other famous or infamous numbers) so that if anyone ever tried using them, they would be instantly investigated.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easyto- Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.” The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.