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Image Resources: American Visual Culture

Yale University's Arts Library Digital Services guide to digital image resources.

American Visual Culture Resources

The Library subscribes to many databases that search historical periodicals that contain illustrations and other types of images.  Here is a list of some databases that give access to many different types of periodicals.

 

American Vogue Archive (ProQuest)

A complete archive of American Vogue (1892-current month), reproduced in high-resolution color page images.  Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included.  Visual Culture Topics include: Textiles and dress, Fashion history, Popular culture, Gender studies, Photography and graphic design, Marketing and advertising.

 

Archives of American Art: Smithsonian Institution

Images, photographs, and documents on the history of American art

 

Chicago History Museum

The Chicago History Museum has an impressive online catalog with many image resources.

 

Cornell University Collection of Political Americana

The Douglas collection includes approximately 5,500 items of American political campaign memorabilia and commemorative items dating to between 1789 and 1960.

 

Harper's Bazaar, 1867-1900 (from Cornell University's Hearth project [home economics and realted disciplines])

Digital content from the American fashion magazine from the first issue in 1867 through April, 1900

 

Library of Congress American Memory

Web portal to the Library of Congress' vast digital collections about American history and creativity.

 

Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog 

Pathfinder to more than 1 million digital images, the online catalog is one of the largest digital image databases in the world.

 

Encyclopedia Smithsonian: History and Culture

This webpage offers descriptions and links to the Smithsonian's digital collections on different subjects like America on the Move and the Smithsonian's Photography Initiative, many of which contain images as well as supplemental resources.

 

New York Public Library Digital Gallery

NYPL Digital Gallery offers thousands of digital images of drawings, illuminated manuscripts, maps, photographs, posters, prints, rare illustrated books, and more. Collections cover artworks and objects, creators, dance, design, furniture, motion pictures, music, ornament, performance, spectacle, theatre, advertising, book binding, dust jackets, friendship books, menus, post cards, posters, trade and greeting cards. Collections include Bernice Abbott's WPA Changing New York photographs, "Classic 6:" New York City Apartment Building Living 1880s-1910s, Metropolis: New York City Water and Transit Infrastructure in Photographs, and many more.

 

Online Archive of California

The OAC contains more than 170,000 digital images and documents from California's archives, museums, and libraries.

 

White House Photo Stream on Flickr

 

Audubon's Birds of America

This University of Pittsburh website presents the omplete double elephant folio set of Audubon’s Birds of America, accompanied by his Ornithological Biography.

 
Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Winterthur, Delaware

Winterthur, an American country estate, is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), an avid antiques collector and horticulturist. In the early 20th century, H. F. du Pont and his father, Henry Algernon du Pont, designed Winterthur in the spirit of 18th- and19th-century European country houses.

 

 


Related Resources

 

United Kingdom National Trust Image Collections

  Over 750,000 images of British historic architecture and objects of material culture

 

Feature

E. Twyeffort, Maker of Men's Clothes, Advertisment from Vogue, December 5, 1895

Search the American Vogue Archive for images of American Visual Culture


Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock
The Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution, is dedicated to collectiong and preserving the papers, primary records and photographs documenting the history of American Art

Louis Comfort Tiffany, Vase, 1893-1896
 Images of American Art and Visual Culture
The Metropolitan Museum of Art