On July 8, 1796, the U.S. State Department issued the earliest known passport in its federal records, marking the start of America’s centralized passport system. Earlier travel documents had been granted by the Continental Congress and individual states, but the 1796 broadside is the first surviving example of the new federal government’s standardized safe‑conduct papers.
Early American passports were enormous single‑sheet broadsides, nothing like the uniform booklets we carry today. With photography still decades away, officials relied on meticulous handwritten descriptions of the bearer’s appearance — eye color, hair, complexion, even the shape of the nose or the presence of scars. Each passport became a uniquely personal, hand‑penned portrait of a traveler at the dawn of the republic.
Image: A later U.S. passport issued by John Quincy Adams in London in 1815. Adams personally issued over 600 U.S. passports to American citizens during his assignment as U.S. Minister to Great Britain. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
