Mask argues that the development of formal systems of house numbering is connected to the rise of the modern European state and the state’s interest in numbering its citizens. Mask describes a day spent with Anton Tantner, a historian of house numbering. Exploring Vienna and looking for remnants of the earliest house numbers convinced Mask of the historical importance of house numbering and its connection to state power.

Vienna was the site of one of the earliest government attempts at formalizing house numbers. In 1770, the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, desperate for soldiers to fight in her wars with Prussia, ordered officers to travel throughout her territories numbering residences and recording the occupants of each. In all, the Habsburg officers identified over 7 million citizens living in over 1 million individual residences. Although this was not the earliest attempt to identify individual residences—Mask points to examples in Paris, London, and New York—the house numbers ordered by Empress Maria Theresa represent the first large-scale, successful attempts to identify individual residencies and list their occupants.

Many early attempts to number houses were unsuccessful. In 19th-century London, a house numbered 96 was found between houses numbering 14 and 15. When asked about her house number, the resident of number 96 explained that she had recently moved and brought her old house number with her to her new house.