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The Library of Congress Shares Over 3,000 Photos on Flickr

flickr.com — Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

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  • rdrysdale, on 01/17/2008, -3/+33Awesome news! Now quick, everyone start stumbling.
  • dedmond29, on 01/17/2008, -3/+12This is a really cool find
  • misterpony, on 01/17/2008, -2/+29Good size and they added tags, too. Nice work librarians!
  • whiteknives, on 01/17/2008, -2/+34These are remarkable. Never before has the mid 20th century seemed so real and personal.
  • Sedako, on 01/17/2008, -3/+20The quality of these images really surprises me. I would never expect pictures from some of those eras to look that good.
    • Klainmeister, on 01/17/2008, -1/+18They're taken with medium format film with camera technology that really hasn't changed up until the invention of digital. these cameras and film can still take higher res photos than even the best ccd chip...
    • Peralton, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3Also, these all seem to be transfers from transparency, which means they were probably shot originally on Kodachrome transparency stock. That film gave a wonderful saturation of color, which is why they look so stunning. The number of pixels of info is one thing, but the color saturation of the old Kodachrome process is my favorite. Kodachrome is still made today, but it's not the same emulsion or process, so it looks different (but still very nice).
  • EpidemiK, on 01/17/2008, -32/+2No one cares.
  • LotusWolf, on 01/17/2008, -3/+7absolutely incredible
  • jgreene777, on 01/17/2008, -14/+6Our tax dollars at work!
    • tripster, on 01/17/2008, -0/+7"Our tax dollars at work!"

      Careful, some might think you were being sarcastic. I too love to see the positive effects of my tax dollars! ^_^
    • zizzy, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4You mean the $24.95 a year for a flickr pro account? That sure is a lot of tax dollars being wasted.
    • PopcornDave, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1What's wrong with our tax dollars allowing us to see a bit of our own country's history through pictures?
  • cyngaines, on 01/17/2008, -2/+42Absolutely wonderful way to spread free, public domain imagery. Plus, I LOVE to finally see a "No Rights Reserved" icon on Flickr!!! WAY TO GO!!!
    • anaesthetica, on 01/17/2008, -0/+11This will be an incredible boon to Wikipedia as well. There are constantly looking for free images, and this is an authoritative and wide ranging source. Kudos to the Library of Congress for making information free!
  • jmpeagle, on 01/17/2008, -3/+2http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2 ...
    -he's like those annoying gym enthusiasts from Family Guy
    • andregriffin, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3You may want to reverse your phrasing on that.
  • AsceticMonk, on 01/17/2008, -1/+10Love these photos! Now, does "No Rights Reserved" mean we can use them in our personal projects?
  • volve, on 01/17/2008, -1/+11Thank God for the librarians of this world; we owe them more than we will ever truly know.
    • Coffeedemon, on 01/17/2008, -0/+5Indeed. And don't forget to thank your archivist for keeping those pictures in such good shape so they could be scanned.
      • volve, on 01/17/2008, -1/+3Ok, I'll thank my wife. :)

        (She taught me the value of these fields many years ago.)
  • BigBallistix, on 01/17/2008, -1/+11Librarians really are doing a neat job of keeping with the times. Now we just need them to upload digital copies of everything, steal them, and upload them as one super-fun torrent.=D
    • secrity, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1These images are free for the taking
  • xqb4dpx, on 01/17/2008, -1/+17this is great news. government 2.0
  • Funkly, on 01/17/2008, -1/+4i got to tell you, I'm a little concerned... this picture http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2179131683 ... is supposed to be from 1939-1945, but the corrugated card boxes don't appear to fit the time frame.. i could be wrong, but it look a little to modern of a box (and printing) for someone to be using there...
    • agentSA, on 01/17/2008, -1/+5its a conspiracy!
    • hobbangmann, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4well wikipedia says that corrugated boxes were invented in 1890 and replaced wooden boxes in the beginning of the 20th century, seems completely reasonable to me.
      • joel8x, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3And screen printing has been around quite a while as well.
        • Funkly, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2yeh i saw that i just thought it looked a bit modern of a box, i know the type face looked like that era.. it was just a thought... no conspiracy, i was thinking mistake.... sheesh :)
    • HardwareWeenie, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2I guess you've never been in your grandma's basement and seen ancient boxes. According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrugated_fiberboard "By the start of the 20th century, corrugated boxes began replacing the custom-made wooden crates and boxes previously used for trade."
    • hadak, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4Compare the typeface to this reference, a box of Corn Flakes from 1919
      http://www.adclassix.com/ads/19kelloggs.htm
      • PopcornDave, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1Not to mention what appears to be an eagle's wings on the right hand side of the box. My guess would be that it's from something about a victory garden.
  • seraphisset, on 01/17/2008, -0/+14This is the kind of progress we can make when our government works with us, rather than against us. I, for one, am ecstatic that this has happened.
  • chicken101, on 01/17/2008, -1/+5http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2 ...

    Need I say more?
  • getjustin, on 01/17/2008, -0/+12I still get a kick out of color photos pre-1950's. It makes the past seem so much closer and tangible. Good work, LoC.
  • jknation, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1I feel bad for the people who have to upload thousands and thousands of pictures.
    • misxn, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2I'm quite sure they had this process automated. This is 2008 you know.
  • benburkhart, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4As both a photography student and an appreciator of our history, these images are without a doubt an incredibly impressive source of heritage presented in a (mostly) aesthetically pleasing manner.
    The color transparencies of the aircraft production lines are my personal faves.
    Props to the Library of Congress.
  • haochi, on 01/17/2008, -4/+1Where's the Book of Secrets?
  • Wireddd, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4This is certainly a worthwile effort. I wonder what else the LoC has that can be digitized.
  • solidhayter, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3Very impressive, wonderful shots. And to think, photos like that were probably very difficult to capture back then with such intricate and involved (and large) cameras, whereas today a Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D series could snap them off without breaking a sweat.

    Technology and art are married much closer than I sometimes realize.
  • Paisley09, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3Actually, I'm pretty surprised. This is really good news.
  • mongoh8fire, on 01/17/2008, -2/+5Dude! Your grandma was hawwwwt!
  • Peralton, on 01/17/2008, -0/+5Awesome. What is the point of having images locked in a vault somewhere? This way they will be seen and used. I will be spending a lot of time perusing this archive.
  • solidhayter, on 01/17/2008, -0/+6Follow the Persistent URL in the descriptions and you can download the full-size uncompressed TIFFs. The one I just grabbed was 5432 x 3765.

    These are truly great, I might slowly build my own archive to save.
  • drunkwally, on 01/17/2008, -7/+2Burried: Obviously photoshopped using the look-old-filter - done by librarians with too much time on their hands.
  • notsotricky, on 01/17/2008, -1/+4If you like this...
    http://www.shorpy.com/
  • SirG3, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2I've been looking through the pictures from the 1910s. Almost all of the people there are dead and many of the places no longer exist. Makes you think, eh?
  • GuacamoleSan, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4Amazing color photos from WWII
  • omgsideburns, on 01/17/2008, -0/+2wow! beautiful pictures!
  • RocketSeason, on 01/17/2008, -0/+4Marked as Contact.
  • Atheyst, on 01/17/2008, -1/+1That's amazing how well they made the photos, I doubt they were taken that clear, it's amazing to see such old photos in so high quality, it let's you see the passed in a new light.
    • secrity, on 01/17/2008, -0/+3They were taken that clearly, the equipment was large but the quality of the lenses and photo materials were very good. These images are on 4"x5" film, a print from these transparencies or negatives is better than from today's 35mm and CCD images. The reason that people think that images from this period are ***** is because most of the images you see from those periods were taken with ***** amateur cameras. These images are the cream of the crop taken by professional photographers with top notch equipment.
  • Travisx2, on 01/17/2008, -1/+2Is it just me or are the pics of the women with their hands on large shiny complex airplane engines completely HOT!
  • gullevek, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1Sadly it seems you cant subscribe to their stream, but its amazing to see all those old color slides.
  • ruest, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1OAI-PMH
  • Doomsan, on 01/17/2008, -0/+1The white marine siut needs a little ironing.
  • mister711, on 01/17/2008, -4/+1How about this 1914 upskirt?
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2 ...
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