Finding Illustrations for Your Memoir or Family History Book
Biff Barnes
One of the ways digital printing has changed family history and memoir is by making illustrated books easier to create and less expensive to produce.
One of the first credit cards from the Smithsonian's collection of artifacts.
A few well chosen images can make your book both more visually attractive and more reflective of the world you are trying to reflect in the text. If you are fortunate, you may have photos in your own collection or that of your family. But for many times and places images may not be readily available. Here are three sources of images that may provide what you are looking for.
Abraham Lincoln's top hat from the Smithsonian's collection of artifacts.
An award winning portal for history educators that links to over 1200 websites dealing with topics spanning the globe from prehistorical times to the present with specialized lists of site dealing with topics like art history, military history and oral history. Many of the sites listed contain photo collections.
CriticalPast is one of the world’s largest sources for archival footage including 57,000 videos and over 7 million images. Its images and videos are not free, but some cannot be found anywhere else.
The Smithsonian has images of thousands of museum artifacts from the “Towne of Boston” Flintlock Musket, to a gold nugget said to be the first discovered at Sutter’s Mill triggering the California Gold Rush, to a 1955 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon, the AIDS Memorial Quilt, and the first Apple Macintosh. To access the images, go to the American History Home Page using the link above. Click on the Find Educational Resources button on the bottom right. Then click on the Museum Artifacts tab on the top of the next page.