Looking for 1920s clip art

November 10, 2006 11:48 AM

I need clip art or line drawings depicting the "Roaring 20s," and they have to be free.

Much, much patient Googling over the last couple of days hasn't turned up much that I find useful. A lot of what comes up are either from pay sites like clipart.com, or photographs of people in 1920s garb or photos of people from the 1920s, but what I'm really looking for is illustrations or silhouettes, preferably simple line drawings like this. Flappers and their male equivalents, people dancing 1920s dances, that sort of thing. (Super extra bonus points if the images were of anthropomorphic animals, like cats and dogs doing the Charleston, but I know the odds of finding something like that for free are pretty much nonexistent.)

And yeah, they have to be free. Seriously, even if there's a bunch of great stuff at WhateverSite.com for only three bucks? Not happening (and not up to me).

Any suggestions for good places to look (bearing in mind the whole "must be free" thing)?

posted by anonymous to media & arts (9 answers total)

You should be able to find LOTS of photographs and advertising lineart in the public domain at the Library of Congress' American Memory project. The majority of the photographs are print resolution.
posted by luriete at 11:55 AM on November 10, 2006

Some of these might fit the bill, quality isn't great -

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
posted by fire&wings at 12:09 PM on November 10, 2006

Check out a clicpart book from the library and scan it. There's hundreds ofd books of 20s-style illustrations.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:32 PM on November 10, 2006

GIS for "John Held Jr"
posted by La Cieca at 1:20 PM on November 10, 2006

The free sampler from Dover press occasionally has 20s themed clip art up. They only keep a few weeks up at a time, though, and it's hit or miss for what you're looking for. This week's is here and it went out today. If you shift the date in the URL back by sevens (manually) you can get back a few weeks. I've put two up that I've snagged in the past - I don't really like the 20s, so I rarely saved them in the past when they were up.
posted by cobaltnine at 1:30 PM on November 10, 2006

I did a quick search for "flapper" on the Flickr collage images group and there are a few possibilities there. Probably worth trying a few more search terms.
posted by vetiver at 1:37 PM on November 10, 2006

There are some silhouettes here.
posted by logic vs love at 1:44 PM on November 10, 2006

These are the two books that you want: I used to own them both but alas, I don't know what I did with them. Perhaps your local library has them and you can scan, as suggested above?

Advertising Cuts of the 20s and 30s CD-ROM and Book

Art Deco Fashions CD-ROM and Book
posted by hsoltz at 2:12 PM on November 10, 2006

A lot of these are 50's style, but have a look through Retro Clipart INDEX and see if there's anything there you can use.
posted by chimmyc at 7:30 PM on November 10, 2006