Library Guides: HIPS 17502: Science, Culture, and Society III: Modern Science: Images

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur. 1885. From the Images from the History of Medicine (NLM).

Online Image Resources

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Very large collection of high resolution images. Images related to science and medicine can be located using keyword searching. Primarily a resource for art history, this is a good source for images from manuscripts, paintings and more.
Image database covering architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture. Select "Search and Browse for Images" to begin using the database.

Chemical Heritage Foundation Image Archive
CHF’s Image Archive contains an extensive collection of photographic prints, negatives, and slides reflecting the chemical history of the past century. CHF currently holds more than 20,000 images of notable chemists, laboratories, industrial scenes, historic gatherings, and chemical artifacts.
Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Over 30,000 historical digital images, photographs, slides, lithographs, engravings, drawings and other visual materials. Contains portraits and snapshots of modern American physicists, astronomers and geophysicists and other scientists; photos and illustrations of laboratories, telescopes, accelerators and other instruments, objects and places.
Images from the History of Medicine
Provides access to nearly 70,000 images in the collections of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S National Library of Medicine (NLM).

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Type words in keyword search; select "only results with images" to view images found in the articles retrieved by your search.
A database of back issues of core journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. All issues of each journal are included in full-text except for the most recent 2-to-5 years.

New York Public Library Digital Gallery
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An excellent and freely-available image database with an emphasis on fashion, clothing and theatrical images. The images are digitized from primary sources in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, and printed ephemera.
University of Chicago Digital Collections
Digital collections from the Special Collections Research Center

Indices to Illustrations

Printed images are indexed. You don't have to browse endless piles of books or magazines to find good images. There are many indexes to printed images, and some are online.

This selection is listed in order of dates of coverage, oldest to most recent.

Photography Index: A Guide to Reproductions
Indexes photographic reproductions in books published between 1820 and 1970s.
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This index emphasizes artistic and documentary photography. It is arranged by photographer, but also includes a good subject index.

Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Date coverage: 1473-1700. Select the Advanced Search option and use the "Illustration Type" field to limit results by type of illustration. Select multiple types of illustrations using Ctrl + click.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. Over 200 libraries worldwide have contributed to EEBO. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions specially created for the product.
Sabin Americana Collection, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Date coverage: 1500-1926. Select the Advanced Search tab and note the drop-down box titled "to Illustrated Works Containing". Select multiple types of illustrated works using Ctrl + click.
Works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900s. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents, forming a collection of over 6 million pages from 29,000 works.

Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography.
Making of the Modern World This link opens in a new window
Date coverage: 1450-1850. Select the Advanced Search tab and use the “Illustrated Works Containing” field to search by type of illustrated work. Select multiple types of illustrated works using Ctrl + click.
Covers the history of Western trade, encompassing the coal, iron, and steel industries, the railway industry, the cotton industry, banking and finance, and the emergence of the modern corporation. It is also strong in the rise of the modern labor movement, the evolving status of slavery, the condition and making of the working class, colonization, the Atlantic world, Latin American/Caribbean studies, social history, gender, and the economic theories that championed and challenged capitalism in the nineteenth century. Part I: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Collection, 1450-1850, Part II: 1851-1914, Part III: 1890–1945, Part IV: 1800-1890.

Image Resources for 19th Century Laboratories

ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Very large collection of high resolution images. Images related to science and medicine can be located using keyword searching. Primarily a resource for art history, this is a good source for images from manuscripts, paintings and more.
Image database covering architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture. Select "Search and Browse for Images" to begin using the database.

Images from the History of Medicine
Provides access to nearly 70,000 images in the collections of the History of Medicine Division (HMD) of the U.S National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Photographs of Apparatus Collections
Examples of college physics professors' laboratories and apparatus used for demonstrations and laboratory courses. By Thomas B. Greenslade, Jr., Professor Emeritus of Physics at Kenyon College.
VIA (Visual Information Access)
The Visual Information Access (VIA) system is a union catalog of visual resources at Harvard, documenting the arts, material culture, and social history.

Images of Scientific Instruments

Harvard University - Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
Browseable and searchable gallery of images of scientific apparatus from the Harvard collection of instruments.
Yale Peabody Museum Collection of Scientific Instruments
Search the Historical Scientific Instruments museum catalog for different types of instruments. The results often contain links to images of the instruments.

Indexes of Printed Images

Printed images are indexed. You don't have to browse endless piles of books or journals to find good images. There are many indexes to printed images; most of the indexes listed below are online.

America's Historical Newspapers
Date Coverage: 1690-1922. Select "Article Types". Check the boxes to search for advertisements, cartoons, maps or illustrations.

Early English Books Online This link opens in a new window
Date Coverage: 1473-1700. The advanced search offers an option to specify "Illustration Type".
Early English Books Online (EEBO) features page images of almost every work printed in the British Isles and North America, as well as works in English printed elsewhere from 1470-1700. Over 200 libraries worldwide have contributed to EEBO. From the first book printed in English through to the ages of Spenser, Shakespeare and of the English Civil War, EEBO's content draws on authoritative and respected short-title catalogues of the period and features a substantial number of text transcriptions specially created for the product.

Photography Index: A Guide to Reproductions
TR199.P370 Regenstein, 4th Floor Reference Collection
Indexes photographic reproductions in books published between 1820 and 1970s.
& more less...
This index emphasizes artistic and documentary photography. It is arranged by photographer, but also includes a good subject index.

Sabin Americana Collection, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Select the "Advanced Search" button and note the drop box titled "to Illustrated Works Containing".
Works about the Americas published throughout the world from 1500 to the early 1900s. Included are books, pamphlets, serials and other documents, forming a collection of over 6 million pages from 29,000 works.

Based on Joseph Sabin's landmark bibliography.

Contact Information

Rebecca Starkey
Regenstein Reference Librarian
Regenstein Library, 1st floor
773-702-4484
Email Rebecca

Deb Werner
Biomedical Reference Librarian
Crerar Library Room 127
773-702-8552
Email Deb

Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Director of Research and Teaching Support
Regenstein Library Room 181
773-702-8777
Email Andrea

Catherine Uecker
Rare Books Librarian
Regenstein Library, The Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, Rm 130
773-702-8711
Email Catherine