Images
- Major Institutional and Subject Collections
- Advertisements
- Cartoons
- Search Engines and Link Collections
- Further Information
Most of the resources listed under Non-Harvard Sources of Online Full Text include images.
Visual materials, i.e., drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, films, videos, etc. are to be found in many Harvard libraries. Records for many, but by no means all, individual Harvard University Library images are available in VIA, an online catalog of images. Records include subjects and a thumbnail image.
Digital Collections at Harvard. Digitized versions of Harvard University Library collections.
Harvard College Library Digital Collections
A selection of online major institutional and subject collections is listed here. Many more can be found using the Search Engines and Link Collections (below).
Major Institutional and Subject Collections
American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900
American Civil War: Photographs, Posters and Ephemera collection includes Civil War valentines, Political and other cartoons, Sheet music covers, etc.
American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 contains about 2,800 lantern slide views of American buildings and landscapes.
American Memory (Library of Congress)
AP Multimedia Archive (AccuNet) is a searchable database of over 700,000 Associated Press photographs, charts and other graphics from the 1840s to the present.
ARTstor is a database of digital images serving art history and the humanities.
Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
Calisphere (University of California) includes 150,000 digitized primary sources.
Online Archive of California offers collections from several California museums, historical societies, and archives.
CAMIO (Catalog of Art Museum Images Online) contains searchable images and descriptions for over 115,000 works of art from US and Canadian museums.
Corbis Images (commercial site)
History of the American West (1860-1920) offers over 30,000 photographs from the Denver Public Library.
John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera (18th-20th centuries). Collection, housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, documents everyday life in Britain.
Labor Arts
online museum. Distributed. Images: Art, posters, artifacts. Music: sheet music, audio
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
National Portrait Gallery's Collections Search
NYPL Digital Gallery offers over 700,000 images from the New York Public Library.
Posters at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives includes a searchable database of around 33,000 of their 100,000 item worldwide political poster collection.
Science & Society Picture Library offers over 50,000 images from the Science Museum (London), the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum.
Sources for television and radio ads are available on the Radio/Film page of this guide.
Searches can be limited to advertisements in Proquest Historical Newspapers and American Periodicals Series Online - More Search Options, then Document Type.
Ad*Access (1911 and 1955)
adflip.com:the world's largest searchable database of classic print ads (individual subscription)
Advertising Archives has both American and British ads.
Early Advertising Collection (1790-1910) contains European and American printed advertisements, largely late 19th century trade cards. Dates often approximate.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920
Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History
John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera (18th-20th centuries). Collection, housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, documents everyday life in Britain. Includes section on advertising.
Medicine & Madison Avenue (1850-1920)
Additional links:
Advertisements Online and University of Washington libraries images guide
The Presidential Elections, 1860-1912: Cartoons from Harper's Weekly and other Leading Journals
Cartoons of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
1896: Presidential Campaign - Cartoons and Commentary
Political Cartoons and Caricatures (Library of Congress)
Teaching with Documents: Political Cartoons illustrating Progressivism and the Election of 1912
Search Engines and Link Collections
American Historical Images (Digital History)
Catalog of American Portraits Portrait Search searches numerous American collections. Records often include images.
Digital Images Collections Wiki offers links to collections of Free- and Fair-Use digital images arranged by subject.
Institute of Museums and Library Services Digital Collections can be browsed by subject, place, and collection title
Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web
Picturing U.S. History, Web Resources
Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) offers images of art, design, and posters.
Visual Collections: Images of Art, History and Culture hosts collections from several museums, universities and private collections. Many free, some by subscription.
Visual Resources Research Guide (Yale University) offers list of Image Resources by Subject
Wikimedia Commons is a database of over 5 million freely usable media files.
World Digital Library offers primary source materials.