The Library of Congress has a bunch of stuff. A whole bunch of stuff. The Library of Congress has also been very active in putting this bunch-o-stuff online and making it available to the public that owns it. Go to the American Memory home page to get to all the online collections. Here are three of my favorite collections.

Posters From the WPA.

The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library's holdings in the 1940s.

Check out the collection highlights

thanks to MetaFilter

America From the Great Depression to World War II

I studied photography in the early 70s. As I learned of photography's history, I learned of the photographers of the WPA. Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, Ben Shawn, and many others. I had always wondered, since these images were taken under contract to the government, if they were available to purchase. Well, they are.

The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection are among the most famous documentary photographs ever produced. Created by a group of U.S. government photographers, the images show Americans in every part of the nation. In the early years, the project emphasized rural life and the negative impact of the Great Depression, farm mechanization, and the Dust Bowl. In later years, the photographers turned their attention to the mobilization effort for World War II. The core of the collection consists of about 164,000 black-and-white photographs. This release provides access to over 160,000 of these images; future additions will expand the black-and-white offering. The FSA-OWI photographers also produced about 1600 color photographs during the latter days of the project.

Check out 15 Popular Requests From the FSA-OWI Collection.

Selected Civil War Photographs

This is one of the early collections LOC put up on the web. Remember those Mathew Brady Civil War pictures? Here they are. And you can buy prints of these too as well as download higher quality images.

The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men.