Public Domain Performing Arts Posters At The Library Of Congress

January 31st, 2010 · 7 Comments · Public Domain How-To

Library of Congress Performing
Arts Poster Collection

Here’s another great Public Domain resource from the Library of Congress…

This collection features hundreds of truly amazing turn of the century performing arts posters featuring magicians, psychics, plays, comedies, and a wide variety of shows and events available as high-resolution, archival quality downloads.

If you’ve ever wanted to start a business reprinting Public Domain posters here’s a great opportunity to get started!

Here’s a few samples straight from the collection…

There’s a ton of cool stuff in here.

My favorites are the old magician posters ~ I’m a sucker for anything to do with magic and the occult, especially the old stuff!

Here’s the link to the Performing Arts Poster Collection at the Library of Congress…

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/p?pp/var:@field(COLLID%20var)::SortBy=CALL

Have Fun!

P.S. – What are your favorite posters in this collection? Do you have ideas on how these posters can be used to create awesome new products?

Leave a comment below and let’s discuss it!

About the Author:

Logan Andrew is an online entrepreneur, information publisher, and author that has been using Public Domain material to create profitable products and businesses since 2001. He is also co-author of "The Guide To Public Domain Profits" available here. For more info Logan, click here.

Last 5 posts by Logan:

7 Comments so far ↓

Joi // Jan 31, 2010 at 2:28 pm

Thanks for pointing these posters out – they’re outstanding!
Joi´s last blog ..A Few Thoughts and The Best Quote You’ll Read This Year

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
January 31st, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Hi Joi, thanks. Great blog by the way, you just got one more reader ; )

[Reply]
Juergen // Feb 15, 2010 at 7:58 am

Hi Logan, first of all, thx for this amazing blog and the book I bought yesterday. Cost me one sleepless night but I could not stop reading;-)
I am doing a lot of things in Germany with public domain stuff and I am quite up-to-date with German copyright laws, which is pretty easy.

Now I stumbled upon these nice posters and a question came to my mind. One of my upcoming projects is a series of ebooks with old advertisments, you know tobacco, cosmetics and so on. One of the best sources I found when researching are the collections of Duke University, they are really brillant – but: most of the stuff is prohibited from commercial use. I can understand that for things published after 1923, but before? They claim copyright for stuff even from the 1900s. Can you shed some light on that and help me with you knowledge? I would really like to use some of their stuff….

Best regards and keep up the good work,
Juergen

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
February 15th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Hi Juergen, thanks for the comment and thanks for ordering “The Public Domain Treasure Hunter’s Guide To Public Domain Profits”.

Let me know if you have any questions after you get done reading the book.

About the “no commercial use” statement you are finding on the Duke University items (don’t they have some of the most incredible old ads?)…this is really a personal decision that needs to be made as to whether you are going to abide by the “rules”.

For an understanding of how we feel about the subject, see the response I made to Anita’s comment on this post.

Also, download and read this report…

http://pdthmagdl.s3.amazonaws.com/CopyWRONG.pdf

You’ll see my personal opinions on this in the report.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks Juergen, look forward to talking with you more.

[Reply]
Juergen Reply:
February 16th, 2010 at 6:21 am
Hi Logan, I appreciate your answer and already downloaded your PDF. Your tips are very useful for me and I see that you are an absolute professional on the PD business. Thx a million, Juergen.

[Reply]
Marg // Mar 4, 2010 at 12:23 pm

Hey Logan,
I went looking at the Library of Congress site and would like to download some of the posters. However, when I click on the link to the uncompressed TIFF version of the poster to get the larger size it comes up as a movie, not a file I can use. I downloaded the larger size poster but it is only about 800 x 1200 pixels at 300 dpi; not big enough to make a poster from.

How do you get the larger sized poster? That would really help.
Thanks
Marg

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Hi Marg,

Thanks for the excellent question. I started to answer here and then realized the answer would be a bit longer than I expected so I decided to release the answer as a new post. Look for that to be released over the next few days.

Thanks!
Logan

[Reply]