LibGuides: Women's History: Images

Welcome to Images

On this page, find image resources and learn how to use images ethically in your academic and creative work.

Campus photographer, Gary Gladstone, working on the yearbook, 1960s. Courtesy of the Sarah Lawrence College Archives.

When and How Can I Use an Image?

Just because you find an image online does not mean that it is free to use. When using an image, make sure you use media with a stated license (for example Creative Commons and Public Domain) or determine if your intended use of an image is covered under Fair Use.

Can I Use That Picture?

Newbold, Curtis. Can I Use that Picture?. 2014. The Visual Communication Guy. Web. Accessed August 25, 2017.

You must also always cite an image, just as you would a work in print.
For information on how to cite sources, visit this page.

Creative Commons helps people to share their works with the world.

Creative Commons licenses are a standardized way to give others permission to share and use a piece of work -- on conditions of their choice. To find out how you can use an image with a Creative Commons license review the license type listed.

Learn more with the Creative Commons Flyer
Visit the Creative Commons website to learn how to share your work and use & remix Creative Commons licensed works.

Depending upon when a work was created, it might be in the Public Domain.

Copyright Term and the Public Domain, a guide to copyright duration created by Peter Hirtle at Cornell University, is a comprehensive and useful resource for researching a work's copyright status. You can also use the Copyright Slider from the American Library Association for quick reference.

As a general rule, works registered or published in the U.S. before 1923 are in the public domain.

Have more questions? Check out our Copyright Guide and/or

What is Fair Use?

In order to balance the interests of the creators of copyrighted works with the public's ability to benefit from those works, copyright law includes the exemption of Fair Use.

Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission for purposes such as criticism, parody, news reporting, research and scholarship, and teaching.

However, just because a use is educational does not mean that it automatically qualifies as fair use. When using content for certain purposes it is important to consider copyright and if you might be infringing on it.

Columbia Fair Use Checklist

Fair Use Evaluator - American Library Association

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center - Stanford University Libraries

Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians - U.S. Copyright Office

ACRL

Visual Resources and Image Databases at Sarah Lawrence

Sarah Lawrence Image Collections

Luna - Digital Image Collections This link opens in a new window Search Luna, a database of digital images, from the Visual Resources Library at Sarah Lawrence College to see images and information about our college's art properties and various Luna Commons collections containing maps, posters, photography, and fashion plates.

Sarah Lawrence College Archives - Digital Collections Browse digitized images from the Sarah Lawrence College Archives.

Academic Databases with Images

ARTstor This link opens in a new window Image database with over 2 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Images are provided by numerous museums, academic institutions, and private foundations. More than 100,000 images added each year. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: Varies.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window Oxford Art Online (formerly Grove Art) allows users to access and simultaneously cross-search Grove Art Online (which provides the entire text of the Dictionary of Art), the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, the Oxford Companion to Western Art, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Scope: Worldwide. Dates: Time periods covered: 10000-1000 BC to 21st century.

Free Image Databases

The MET Digital Collection Comprehensive image and article database covering not only the objects in the MET's collection, but also topics such as conservation and cultural heritage.
Victoria & Albert Museum Search the 1,221,563 objects and 802,226 images from the V&A's collections.
Google Arts & Culture Image database featuring museum collections and images from historic events. Search by collection, art movement or artist, or theme, such as Black History & Culture, Internet Art, the Wonders of China, or Day of the Dead.
Artsy Artsy features the world’s leading galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, art fairs, and benefit auctions, all in one place. The database contains over 1,000,000 works of art, architecture, and design by 100,000 artists spanning historical, modern, and contemporary works, and includes the largest online database of contemporary art.
Europeana Europeana Collections provides access to over 50 million digitised items – books, music, artworks and more – with sophisticated search and filter tools.
NYARC: New York Art Resources Consortium The New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC) consists of the research libraries and archives of three leading art museums in New York City: The Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, and The Museum of Modern Art.
Walpole Society Online A selective guide to freely available online resources for the study of the history of British art and architecture from earliest times to the 20th century. Launched January 2013.
The Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture The Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture collects and creates electronic resources for study and research of the decorative arts, with a particular focus on Early America. Included are electronic texts and facsimiles, image databases, and Web resources.
Watercolour World Online database of documentary watercolours painted before 1900. Users can explore these visual records on a world map, search for topics, and compare watercolours from multiple collections in one place.
Islamic Painted Page The Database covers examples of the painted page dating from about 700 to 1900 CE from all over the Islamic world. Persian painting and Ottoman painting are especially widely covered but Arab, Sultanate, Mughal and other sources are all included. The Database includes illuminations, decorated Qur'an pages and book bindings as well as figurative paintings in manuscripts, albums and on single pages.
iPhotoCentral I Photo Central is a searchable database of photographs and includes articles on collecting issues (such as connoisseurship and print values; insurance and risk management; appraisals; buying and selling images; developing a photography collecting library; framing/matting and preserving your collection; conservation, etc.). An additional Special Exhibits section focuses on specific topics, photography processes (such as autochromes, daguerreotypes, stereo views and oratones), contemporary photography and individual photographers.

Library of Congress: Digital Collections Provides free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience from the Library of Congress.
British Library: Public Domain Images Explore over a million public domain illustrations and images from the British Library through Flickr. Users can reuse, remix, or repurpose images ranging from early photographs to all sorts of illustrations.
Brooklyn Visual Heritage Brooklyn Visual Heritage makes digitized historic images of Brooklyn easily accessible to a diverse audience. Working with Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science, the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Public Library. Search by institution, subject, or location.
California's Old Series Trademarks Search a digitized collection of 3,940 trademark applications filed with the Secretary of State between 1861 and 1900. The originals are held by the State Archives. These "Old Series Trademarks" provide a colorful glimpse of commerce and consumer goods in the Golden State at a time when the industrial revolution and transcontinental railroad brought transformative change and expansive new markets for products from California farms, vineyards, and factories.
Calisphere from University of California A database of the digitized collections from California libraries, archives, and museums. With over 400,000 images, texts, and recordings, highlights from the collections include photographs and other primary sources on: Japanese American Internment, Chinese Exclusion Act, Dust Bowl Migration and more.
Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York Provides online access to digital collections of libraries, archives, museums and historical societies located in and around New York City, including NYC and Westchester. Available images include photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, catalogues, memorabilia, ephemera, and more.
DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) A portal that provides different ways to search across a wide selection of digital collections from libraries, museums, archives, and other institutional repositories in the United States. Search through curated exhibitions, explore by place or date, search through images, text, and more.
Internet Archive Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, images, TV news, and more.
MET Digital Collection Search the digitized collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with over 400,000 images and artworks. You can also filter to search by works in the public domain, which can be freely utilized for any purpose.
Museum of the City of New York: Collections Browse more than 185,000 images from the Museum of the City of New York collections, including their Theater Collection, Costumes & Textiles, Manuscripts & Ephemera, and more.
NYPL Digital Collections Search through the over 800,000 digitized items from the New York Public Library’s collections, with prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more. Also has a feature in which public domain items have been enhanced and labelled so that they may be used in various ways.
Photogrammar Search through the 170,000 photographs from 1935-1945 by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information (FSA –OWI). Use the interactive map to search for photographs, or search by photographer.
Smithsonian Libraries: Galaxy of Images Collection of digitized images from the Smithsonian Libraries.
Wikimedia Commons
World Digital Library "The World Digital Library (WDL) is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world."

Ad*Access Over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. Focus is placed on five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygeine, and World War II. The advertisements are from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Gallery of Graphic Design A collection of advertisements from 1930 to 1969.
GLAAD Advertising Library An online library of over 4,000 LGBT-inclusive ads that focuses on mainstream corporate advertising and its affect on how the LGBT community is perceived. .Collects worldwide corporate (including political, government, and health agency) ads with direct references to LGBT people or with a LGBT theme.
Emergence of Advertising in America Offers over 9,000 images from 1850-1900, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials are from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University.

In New York Times Historical you can search for advertisements by going to Advanced Search and selecting the Document type

Flickr Commons The Commons offers access to images with no known copyright restrictions from over 70 institutions. In almost all cases, the images have already entered the Public Domain. Users can limit their image searches to a specific institution or keyword.
Pixabay Searchable database of free, high quality images which can be shared without permission or attribution to the artist.
Unsplash High-resolution photos licensed under Creative Commons Zero. You are free to copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without permission or attribution.

Flickr and Google Image Searches

Google Image Search Search by words, size, image type, and even color. Use the 'Usage Rights' section to look for images available for reuse.

Flickr Advanced Search Use the Advanced search to search images with Creative Commons licenses (can also check for commerical use or modification rights).

Flickr Commons The Commons offers access to images with no known copyright restrictions from over 70 institutions. In almost all cases, the images have already entered the Public Domain. Users can limit their image searches to a specific institution or keyword.