OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
Images / art

Two archives, queried live.

Every record below comes from The Met or Smithsonian Open Access and was filtered on that archive’s own rights field before it reached this page. 19 shown for “Confederate cover” — 48 records examined, 1 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-31 23:03 UTC · fetched live for this request

Object
Public domainThe Met’s isPublicDomain field is true for this object.
CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian’s metadata_usage.access reads CC0 — a waiver, not an expired term.
Not shownAnything failing its archive’s rights field is dropped server-side and never appears here.
The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne, by Edouard Manet

The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne

Edouard Manet · 1864

Public domainThe Met
letter from Confederate through the lines cover

letter from Confederate through the lines cover

Artist not stated in the record · June 20, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign, by George N. Barnard

Photographic Views of Sherman's Campaign

George N. Barnard · 1860s

Public domainThe Met
Confederate Cover

Confederate Cover

Artist not stated in the record · 1861-1865

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terrific Engagement between the "Monitor" 2 guns, and "Merrimac" 10 guns, in Hampton Roads, March 9th, 1862 – The First Fight Between Ironclad Ships of War, by Frances Flora Bond Palmer

Terrific Engagement between the "Monitor" 2 guns, and "Merrimac" 10 guns, in Hampton Roads, March 9th, 1862 – The First Fight Between Ironclad Ships of War

Frances Flora Bond Palmer · 1862

Public domainThe Met
Confederate cover

Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · 1864

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
The Evacuation of Fort Sumter, by Osborn's Gallery

The Evacuation of Fort Sumter

Osborn's Gallery · April 1861

Public domainThe Met
Confederate cover

Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · 1864

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Covered Ways inside the Rebel Fort Mahone, Called by the Soldiers "Fort Damnation," Petersburgh, Virginia, by Thomas C. Roche

Covered Ways inside the Rebel Fort Mahone, Called by the Soldiers "Fort Damnation," Petersburgh, Virginia

Thomas C. Roche · April 2, 1865

Public domainThe Met
Confederate cover handstamped Paid 10

Confederate cover handstamped Paid 10

Artist not stated in the record · February 6, 1862

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Antietam Battlefield], by Alexander Gardner

[Antietam Battlefield]

Alexander Gardner · 1862

Public domainThe Met
1c Franklin on Confederate cover

1c Franklin on Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · May 25, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Terrific Combat Between the "Monitor" 2 Guns & "Merrimac" 11 Guns – In Hampton Roads March 9th, 1862 – In which the little "Monitor" whipped the "Merrimac" and the whole "School" of Rebel Steamers, by Currier & Ives

Terrific Combat Between the "Monitor" 2 Guns & "Merrimac" 11 Guns – In Hampton Roads March 9th, 1862 – In which the little "Monitor" whipped the "Merrimac" and the whole "School" of Rebel Steamers

Currier & Ives · 1862

Public domainThe Met
5c Jefferson Davis on Confederate cover

5c Jefferson Davis on Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · September 10, 1862

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
3c Washington on Confederate cover

3c Washington on Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · May 25, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
3c Washington on Confederate cover

3c Washington on Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · May 15, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Confederate cover

Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · Postmark: March 4, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Confederate cover with U. S. postal issue used after secession

Confederate cover with U. S. postal issue used after secession

Artist not stated in the record · February 26, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Confederate cover

Confederate cover

Artist not stated in the record · April 1, 1861

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
What was queried

Where these records came from.

Two archives are wired, and only two. Each one is filtered on its own rights field — never on a title match, and never on the presence of an image file.

  • The Met Collection API (Open Access)Rights field: isPublicDomain. 8 matched · 8 examined · 1 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.7 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 37258 matched · 40 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.12 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-31 23:03 UTC, during this request. A completed pass is kept for 24 hours and replayed for an identical search, which is what keeps repeated queries inside Smithsonian’s 30-requests-per-hour allowance. A pass in which either archive failed to answer is never kept — an outage must not be replayed as though it were a finding about the catalogue.

Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress are deliberately not wired. Wikimedia was confirmed, on a live query, to return CC-BY material inside the same result set as genuine public domain works, and filtering it safely has not been designed yet. loc.gov was blocked by bot detection during the source evaluation, so its rights vocabulary has never been observed — and nothing here is built on a field nobody has read.

An image file is a rights claim. It never travels without its field.