Research Guides: WRPR 164: Materiality and Spectacle in 19th C. U.S. (HC) Spring 2022: Local Celebrations and State Fairs

Collections, Links & Images

Fairtime: America's Fairs Educating Communities
This online exhibit was put together by the Michigan State University Museum using illustrations from late 19th century posters created by the Fair Publishing House.
Images of county fairs
This group of results from the New York Public Library Digital Collections includes drawings and photographs of fairs. The images are sorted with the oldest appearing first.
The Minnesota State Fair: Origins and Traditions
This page provides a brief history of the state fair along with recommended sources for further information.

TriArte: The Art & Artifacts Database of the TriColleges This link opens in a new window
TriArte features art and artifacts from Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges.

Major Image Collections for U.S. History

American Memory This link opens in a new window
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.
JSTOR Images (formerly Artstor)
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A digital library that provides access to thousands of digital images derived from a variety of museum, library and archival collections. Images support a variety of disciplines including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) This link opens in a new window
The DPLA allows you to search millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Each record links to the original object on the library or other content provider's website.

Flickr: The Commons
Images from many of the world's public photo archives, described by Flickr users so that some are very richly described.
Smithsonian Collections Search
Search over 8.59 million catalog records of museum objects, and library & archives materials. More than 963,000 of these records contain online images, video and sound files, electronic journals and other online resources.

Local Celebrations & State Fairs: Scholarly Studies

Brown, Julie K., Making Culture Visible: the public display of photography at fairs, expositions, and exhibitions in the United States, 1847-1900, (Australia : Harwood Academic Publishers), 2001

Gordon, Beverly ,Bazaars and Fair Ladies: The History of the American Fundraising Fair, (Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press), 1998.