“The Irish American” by George M. Cohan, sheet music first published in 1905. It appears in a set about Irish-Americans in our Free to Use and Reuse archive.
To celebrate Irish-American Heritage Month—and of course St. Patrick’s Day!—we’re adding new images to our Free to Use and Reuse archive and releasing a new resources guide associated with the Irish-American experience.
Last month, we launched our Free to Use archive featuring sets of themed content: travel posters, presidential portraits, Civil War drawings and all manner of dogs—mutts, services animals and fancy show champions. All the sets highlighted in the archive—and these are just a few examples—are fee to use and reuse, meaning there are no known copyright restrictions associated with the content, and you can do whatever you want with it.
The new content associated with Irish-Americans originates from collections throughout the Library—the American Folklife Center, the Geography and Map Division, the Music Division and the Prints and Photographs Division. Included are color lithographs, historical photographs, sheet music, maps and images of famous Irish-Americans—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Ford, Grace Kelly and the Kennedys among them.
Our new resources guide introduces the wonderful primary and secondary resources on Irish-American heritage available through the Library of Congress. A variety of formats can be explored, including photographs, historical newspaper articles and audio recordings of interviews and music. In addition to freely available online resources from the Library’s collections, selected online resources from sites outside of the Library are also listed. Other materials, such as printed books and subscription databases, are available onsite at the Library and through other libraries. This selective guide is not intended to be exhaustive; see Search Tips for finding more materials.
Scroll down for a few more examples from our Free to Use archive associated with Irish-Americans and make sure to check out other sets in the archive. And if you find a creative way to reuse any of the images, let us know by commenting on this post!
Cheers!
Jacqueline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy cut the cake at their wedding on Sept. 12, 1953. Photo by Toni Frissell.
James Donovan, street sweeper in Fall River, Mass., 1916. Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine.
Map showing distribution of the Irish natives in the United States, based on U.S. Census data from 1890.
A mother pins clover on her son’s suit in a lithograph titled “St. Patrick’s Day in America,” published by Duval and Hunter of Philadelphia, c. 1872.
