# Vintage city photos: streets of the past

> Free vintage photographs of city streets, buildings and daily life from the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons, with each archive's rights shown.

1 image from 1 sources (Cleveland Museum of Art 1), updated 2026-11-03. Picked from a live search and refreshed daily.

- Same search in the browser: https://image.shep.bot/search?q=city+street&category=archive
- Same search over the API: `curl "https://image.shep.bot/v1/search?q=city+street&category=archive"`
- Details, files and the credit line: `GET https://image.shep.bot/v1/images/{id}` with an id from the table below.
- Licence verdicts: "Commercial use OK" (with or without credit) is cleared for commercial use; anything else must be checked or is non-commercial. "(editorial)" means people, insignia or brands appear without releases: not for ads. See https://image.shep.bot/docs/licences.md
- Images are never re-hosted: thumbnails, previews and downloads come straight from the source sites.

## Cities as they were

Street scenes from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s: horse-drawn carts and the first cars, market stalls, construction of skyscrapers, flooded streets and parades. The Library of Congress holds the largest public collection, from the Detroit Publishing Company's postcards to the Farm Security Administration's photographers, and Wikimedia Commons adds city archives from around the world.

## Using them

Black-and-white archive photos work for history articles, timelines, packaging with a heritage feel and documentary slides. Read the rights statement: items marked *No known restrictions on publication* are free to use; *Rights status not evaluated* and *Publication may be restricted* need checking first.

## Images

| ImageAsset | id | What | Source | Licence | Commercial use | Direct download |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Streets and Shops in the Tartar city of Pekin](https://clevelandart.org/art/2026.60) | `cleveland:711645` | History & archives, Photo, 7043 × 6602, 1860 | Cleveland Museum of Art | Public domain (museum open access, CC0) | Commercial use OK | yes |

## Questions

**Can I use old photographs of people in an ad?**

Even when the photo's copyright has expired, using a recognisable person to promote something can raise publicity-rights questions. For ads, prefer street scenes where nobody is identifiable.

**What does 'Rights status not evaluated' mean?**

The Library of Congress hasn't checked the copyright. The image may well be free, but it is shown as 'check the terms' until you have verified it.

## Related collections

- [Vintage maps: free antique maps and atlases](https://image.shep.bot/collections/vintage-maps.md): Free antique and vintage maps from the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons: city plans, world maps and charts, with the rights statement for each.
- [Free 4K nature photos: mountains, lakes, coasts](https://image.shep.bot/collections/free-4k-nature-photos.md): Free high-resolution nature photos, at least 4K on the short side: mountains, lakes, coasts and forests, with the licence and credit line on every image.
- [Public-domain Impressionist paintings](https://image.shep.bot/collections/public-domain-impressionist-paintings.md): Free Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from museum open access (Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cézanne), released as CC0 by the Met and other museums.

---
Source: https://image.shep.bot/collections/vintage-city-photographs