U.S. Government Image and Document Sources

Uncle Sam’s Photos at http://www.unclesamsphotos.com a detailed directory of the US government's public domain image galleries

TotallyFreeImages.com - Totally free public-domain images - This is the largest government photo archive on the Internet with more than 494,000 high-resolution, professional-grade, royalty-free images, 100% public-domain and acceptable for use with Wikipedia. (collection from government sources)

Aerial Photos and Maps - http://terraserver-usa.com/default.aspx - free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States Geological Survey originating from USGS. {{PD-USGov-USGS}} may apply to such images.

The Congressional Pictorial Directory - also available in book form.

Government Graphics at http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml - A portal to US government images and photos. "Most of these images and graphics are available for use in the public domain"

History of Medicine at the National Library of Medicine. Most but not all of the exhibitions are PD. Clicking on "Metadata" near the bottom of the page will generate a popup window with information that includes rights usage for each page.

MedPix Medical Image Database Hosting by Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The terms of use of the site state that the original submitter may retain copyright. Nearly all of the submitters are U.S. government physicians. The status of the submitter is available to verify that an individual image is in the public domain.

National Atlas Maps Collection at http://nationalatlas.gov Lots of .GIF image maps, such as Congressional District maps, all in the public domain.

National Cancer Institute Biomedical, Microscope and Science Images at http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/  Great resource for electron microscopy and histological images. Includes general biomedical and science-related images, cancer-specific scientific and patient care-related images, and portraits of directors and staff of the National Cancer Institute.

Naval History – U.S. Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center Photographic Section

NOAA Photo Library – National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency

Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

U.S. Antarctic Program Photo Library

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at http://images.usace.army.mil/main.html - United States Army Corps of Engineers Digital Visual Library

U.S. Census Bureau Photo Services - media "are free to use in news media and public information products" but are not in the public domain. Photo credit is requested, commercial use not allowed; see site for license terms.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service Photo Gallery

USDA Online Photography Center

USDA Agriculture Research Service Image gallery A "complimentary source of high-quality digital photographs available from the Agricultural Research Service 

U.S. Department of Defense photos http://www.defenseimagery.mil/ - US Department of Defense Visual Information Center (high-resolution US military imagery) See also http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/ - Current US Department of Defense publicly released images

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at http://images.fws.gov/ - US Fish and Wildlife Service imagery

U.S. Government Documents at http://www.archive.org/details/USGovernmentDocuments  Government Documents scanned by the Internet Archive

U.S. Library of Congress digital image archive. (Some images are still under copyright, so caveat emptor.)

U.S. National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection

U.S. Senate - http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov - Congressional sites have a broad variety of public domain images, especially photographs of representatives and senators.


 ARCHIVE.ORG U.S. GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

 

The Archive.org U.S. Government Documents Collection is entirely in the public domain and can sometimes produce surprisingly good illustrations.  See the 

Index to Archive.org U.S. Government Documents here 

• For  technical drawings see the U.S. Patents and Trademarks subsection, and search on subjects of interest using the search box at left. All public domain.

Overview of The National Security Internet Archives here

The Archive.org National Security Internet Archives contain the following sub-collections: 

Central Intelligence Agency Collection (110,995 items)
 
FBI Files (more than 1,500 dossiers on celebrities released under Freedom of Information Act and now in the public domain

JFK Assassination Files – The Harold Weisberg Collection (5,704 items)
 
MKULTRA Files (1,778 items) document the U.S. government's experiments in mind control from World War II to the 1970s.

 
Nazi War Crimes Files  a group of documents collected by the U.S. military services before, during and after World War II.
 
Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) was the central intelligence agency of the U.S. government during World War II, headed by William "Wild Bill" Donovan. This archive contains many of its operational records. The O.S.S. was replaced by CIA after 1947.
 
September 11 Collection (6,890 items) offers thousands of government documents, videos, audio and photos used by U.S. government investigators during the days that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
 
STARGATE Files (12,106 items) documents U.S. government experiments in remote viewing and psychic espionage
 
U.S. State Department Collection (965,859 items) contains thousands of diplomatic cables
 
VENONA Collection (2,689 items) documents Cold War efforts to identify Russian sleeper agents and Atomic spies within the United States by breaking the codes and ciphers used by Russian embassies during World War II