Let’s See Your Wallet Card, Mister

A Wallet Card

I recently applied for and received Emeritus Architect status in the state of Ohio. Curiously, the board of registration sent me a confirmation letter with a wallet card. 

Wallet card?

What is the purpose of a wallet card? I mean in 2014, not 1914.

I became registered in 1974. In the intervening 40 years I have been asked to prove that I am, in fact, an architect exactly zero times. No one has ever asked for ID, much less a wallet card. Which looks like it would take about an hour to forge. But there is no need to forge one because no one cares.

Somewhere, sometime there must have been some serious shenanigans going on.

I’m pretty sure the idea of registering architects only predates my own registration by about 30? or 78! years. (Whoa, looked it up. Illinois in 1897.) So what was going on back then? That was 25 years after the Great Chicago Fire. I’m guessing that after rebuilding the city there was a glut of architects. Maybe registration was intended to weed out any (future?) riffraff.

But wallet cards? Who was policing the architects? Or was this just some legislator’s idea? (You may have heard that Texas architects must now be fingerprinted! What are you Texans up to?)

Kentucky, my ’home’ state, didn't jump on the registration band wagon until 1930. KY offers a wallet card if you want to download one. I have never carried one.

Anyways, if you happen to know more about this practice, I/we could stand the enlightenment.

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