This Online Archive Has More Than 10,000 Free-to-Use Historical Images

Jan 13, 2025

Jaron Schneider

A black-and-white photo of a tesla coil indoors, emitting large electrical arcs. A person is seated nearby reading or writing. The wooden walls and metal equipment are visible in the spacious room. Handwritten text is on the bottom of the image. — A double-exposed photograph showing Tesla in his Colorado Springs laboratory. | Dickinson Alley, ca. 1899

The Public Domain Image Archive is a newly-launched curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images — more than 2,000 of which are photos — that are free for everyone to look through and use.

Created and hosted by The Public Domain Review, the Public Domain Image Archive brings images that were locked in “textual homes” and puts them into an easy to browse online gallery that is designed to serve as a practical resource as well as a simple platform to easily browse more than 2,000 years of visual culture.

“After the hundreds (thousands?) of hours trawling through online image collections since the PDR’s inception, we’ve decided it was time to create one of our own! We are really excited to share with you the launch of our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of more than 10,000 out-of-copyright historical images, free for all to explore and reuse,” The Public Domain Review writes.

A group of men in suits and uniforms are gathered together, with one man in focus speaking to them. They appear to be in conversation outdoors, with mixed expressions of engagement and camaraderie. — Muhammad Ali attending a Muslim service to hear Elijah Muhammad deliver the annual Savior’s Day message in Chicago. | John H. White, 1973-4

The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project that was founded in 2011 to be a place to explore the “curious and compelling” works from the history of art, literature and ideas. As the journal’s name suggests, it focuses on works that have fallen into the public domain.

“Our aim is to promote and celebrate the public domain in all its abundance and diversity, and help our readers explore its rich terrain — like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance to an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond,” The Public Domain Review says.

A vintage black-and-white photo of a woman mid-air, performing a gymnastics routine on a horizontal bar outdoors. Another woman stands nearby, observing. They are both dressed in early 20th-century athletic attire. — Turners on the horizontal bar | Heinrich Hamann, ca. 1902

The journal says that while it is primarily a publication of the arts, it has also found itself quietly serving as a digital art gallery that was unfortunately broken across essays and a collection of online posts. The Public Domain Image Archive amalgamates that content into a visually-focused collection. Each image in the collection links to a relevant article on The Public Domain Review where more information about it can be found.

An astronaut stands on the moon's surface, wearing a spacesuit. An American flag is planted nearby, and footprints are visible in the lunar dust. The lunar module is partially visible in the background against the dark space. — Photo from Apollo 11 mission. | NASA, 1969

The collection can be viewed as a catalogue (searchable and able to be browsed by theme, style, date, and more) — there is a way to just filter results by photos, for example — as a simple “infinite” scrolling library, and shuffled to look at images in what The Public Domain Review calls a “serendipitous manner.”

While all the images are free of copyright and available to use, The Public Domain Review does offer some — around 900 — to purchase as high-quality prints.