The South
Arkansas History Commission
Photographs
This site has a great many wonderful images, particularly of the
desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, but they
do not display automatically. You have to click on "Details" and then
on "A look inside: url" The Arkansas History Commission (AHC) holds
visual materials for purposes of private study, research, and
scholarship. Not all AHC images are in the public domain. The patron
using AHC visuals (including digital images) does so with the agreement
to having read its Copyright Notice and assumes all responsibility for
any infringement of copyright held by others in the use of AHC visuals.
The downloaded images are of very high quality. Even a zoomed in detail
holds up fairly well.
Birmingham News Photographs of civil
rights activity in that city have just been discovered and many of
those images are now online, along with the story of how they were
discovered. A wonderful new resource. According to the site " Photos
may not be reproduced without prior written consent." Excellent
download quality.
Cook Collection Photographs,
"Through the Lens of Time" This is a wonderful
collection of nearly 300 images of African Americans dating from the
nineteenth and early twentieth century from the Cook Collection of
Photographs at the Valentine Richmond History Center. The photos are by
George S. Cook (1819-1902) and Huestes P. Cook (1868-1951) primarily of
the Richmond and Central Virginia area. Fair use applies. Excellent
download quality.
LOUISiana Digital Library This broad database includes documents and images. The
collections gathered here include the Historic New Orleans Collection,
Louisiana State Archives and the American Missionary Association
collection at the Amistad Research Center. Excellent download quality.
Florida Photographic Collection
(State
Archives of Florida) There are over 100,000 photographs on the website, and many
excellent images of African Americans included some less well known
photographs of Mary McLeod Bethune and Bethune-Cookman College. All the
images in the collection are in the public domain. Excellent download
quality.
Library of
Virginia Photographic Collections This site is
not easy to use, but there are a great many images from local Virginia
library collections here. The site is unclear on whether it follows
Fair Use. Excellent download quality.
Smithsonian Institution
Research Information System (SIRIS) Image Gallery has the Scurlock Studio
Collection. Addison Scurlock and his two sons were major African
American photographers in Washington D.C., and the Archives Center at
the Smithsonian has now didgitized over 2,000 of the photographs from
that collection. They are an incredible resource and of excellent
quality. Just click on Cross-Searching Center and
type the name "Scurlock" into the search box. Each Smithsonian archive
follows the fair use rule, "Fair use of copyrighted material includes
the use of protected materials for non-commercial educational purposes,
such as teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and
news reporting."
University of Virginia
Special Collections Library has two wonderful
collections online: The Holsinger Studio
Collection
is mostly studio photographs from Charlottesville Virginia from the
1890s through 1920. There are 9,500 images including 500 portraits of
African Americans. Excellent download quality. The Jackson Davis Collection
of African American Educational Photographs contains over 6,000
photographs of African American schools, teachers and students
throughout the Southeastern United States was intended to demonstrate
the wretched conditions of African American schools in the south and to
show how they could be improved. They provide a unique view of southern
education during the first half of the twentieth century. Excellent
download quality. UVA allows use of the images for research, teaching,
and private study. "For these purposes, you may reproduce (print, make
photocopies, or download) materials from this website without prior
permission, on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the
source in all copies (see below). Although we do not require you to
contact us in advance for these purposes, we do appreciate hearing from
teachers, students, and researchers who are using our resources in
interesting ways" (send e-mail to Special Collections at
mssbks@virginia.edu)
Vanishing Georgia This digital collection
comprises nearly 18,000 photographs from the Georgia Archives and
documents more than 100 years of Georgia history and life. The site is
not clear on Fair Use policies. Very good download quality.
Virginia
Historical Society has an easily searchable Museum
and Photograph online catalogue. Where a digital copy has been made it
is linked to the catalogue and there is an option to limit the search
to objects with digitized images. A search using the term "African
American" yielded 186 results and included objects as well as images.
The site declares "If patrons have acquired a copy of an image for
research purposes and wish to reproduce it in any format, including
personal, non-commercial web sites, they must seek the written
permission of the VHS, include a credit line statement, and follow the
criteria set forth in its usage policy. The VHS reserves the right to
request the removal of its images from any web site. Anyone wishing to
reproduce an image may be required to pay use fees."
