5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
I love old illustrations, especially from the 1950s and 60s. That's why I have a tall stack of old National Georgraphics and musty Life magazines within reach of my work table.

But I also hunt for images online. Here are my favorite sources of digital ephemera. Some are copyright free, but others are restricted to personal use.

LIFE magazine (Google Books)

https://books.google.com/books?id=TUAEAAAAMBAJ&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=1

Thanks to Google, you can view every page from every Life Magazine published from the 1930s-1970s. Simply choose a decade and issue, then click "Preview this magazine."
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
To save an image, you have to do a screen capture -- right-clicking won't work. (On a Mac, press Command-Control-Shift-4, then select an area to save it to the Clipboard; on an iPad, press the Home button and the power button at the same time.)
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

Wellcome Images (Science & History)

http://wellcomeimages.org

If you're looking for historical or medical images, head for the Wellcome collection. On the home page, you can search for a topic or click the Explore tab along the bottom of the page to browse images.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
You can refine your search using the boxes on the right. Once you find an image you want, you can add it to your own "lightbox" (you have to register first). Or you can simply download it. In some cases, you can download a high-resolution version.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
You can also look for similar images by selecting one of the related keywords listed below the image.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
This site isn't as easy to use as it should be, but if you can figure out how to navigate the huge collection, you'll find amazing images, especially posters and advertising from the early 20th century.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
I clicked "Daguerreotypes" on the home page, which displayed a grid of early portraits. 
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera
I clicked a thumbnail to display a detailed description of that image, along with download links for different images sizes.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

Internet Archive Book Images (Flickr)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/
This amazing collection contains over 2.5 million copyright-free images, taken from old books. (Here's a story about how the collection came to be.)

To search for a particular type of image, click the tiny magnifying glass on the home page and enter your Search terms in the box at the top of the page.
You can refine the search by size, orientation and even color! Here are all the "orange" "insects" in the collection.
Each image page includes a detailed description. You can download the images in several different sizes, and you can click a link to see all the other images from the same source.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

The British Library

https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary
The British Library also uses Flikr to display its huge collection of public-domain images. To see subcategories, click "Albums" on the home page.
5 excellent sources for online images and ephemera

More collections


  • Advertising: http://advertisingcliche.blogspot.com/search/label/1960
  • History: http://ebookfriendly.com/flickr-photostreams-historic-images/

What online image sources do you use?

Comments

  1. Thanks for all the sources for clip art. That one old photo the woman is holding a weaving shuttle. I might have to go capture that one for future use.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, and there was even a description of who she was. I thought of you when I grabbed it!

      Delete
  2. Thanks for posting these sources. Really great! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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