For Collectors - Smithsonian Air and Space Magazine

December/January 2005-2006

"The Raab Collection, which deals in rare historic documents, letters, and manuscripts, offers for $38,000 the first pilots license issued by the United States government.  In May 1926, Congress passed the Air Commerce Act, which encouraged the development of aviation through regulation. 

The bill's author, William MacCracken, former army pilot and founder of the Nationanl Aeronautic Association, was named Assistant Secretary for Commerce of Aeronautics, and on April 6, 1927, he was issued the nation's first pilots license, signed by Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. Perhaps forseeing a need for the now ubiquitous photo ID, the first licenses bore images of their holders."