Color Our Collections – Images from 1923

Posted January 30, 2019 in Special Collections News

Thousands of books and other works published in the U.S. in 1923 entered the public domain on January 1, 2019. According to The Atlantic, this was “the first time since 1998 for a mass shift to the public domain of material protected under copyright. It’s also the beginning of a new annual tradition: For several decades from 2019 onward, each New Year’s Day will unleash a full year’s worth of works published 95 years earlier.”

To celebrate the creative potential of these new public domain materials, we created a Color Our Collections PDF featuring images from books in the JMU Libraries’ collections – both the Special Collections and the circulating collection – that were originally published in 1923.

Source: Rackham, Arthur. 1923. A Fairy Book. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company. Page 57. From the Special Collections of the James Madison University Libraries

Download the 17-page PDF here (or click on the image above), and discover enchanting images ready for your markers or coloring pencils. You’ll find fairies, princesses, giants, sailing ships, flowers, and more, all from the imaginations of illustrators 95 years ago.