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Among other responsibilities, the CDU was tasked with creating a file card for every demonstrator it could identify at protests in Philadelphia.

I had ordered it directly from the company that made the cards – Topps Chewing Gum Inc in Brooklyn – for around 15 cents, sending off a dime and a nickel taped to a file card.

Inside was a file card, written in green Biro.

Constituents would show up at her family’s door, needing favors from her dad, who kept a file card system of requests asked and answered, a first lesson in the value of chits.

Public libraries have long abandoned exclusive use of card catalogues, and the last company preparing new cards discontinued them in October 2015, but there are still countless historic public and private records in file card format that must be preserved, and damaged cards replaced.