OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
OpenGlyph
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. 23 shown for “Matted tintype of Bachus” — 53 records examined, 29 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-03 04:45 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.
[Group of Men and Boys Standing Along the Railing of the Fulton Street Bridge], by Unknown

[Group of Men and Boys Standing Along the Railing of the Fulton Street Bridge]

Unknown · 1866–68

Public domainThe Met
Matted tintype of Bachus

Matted tintype of Bachus

Artist not stated in the record · 1860s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Carpenter Holding a Bag of Tools and a Square], by Unknown

[Carpenter Holding a Bag of Tools and a Square]

Unknown · 1880–90s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a woman, by E. C. Stowe, American

Tintype of a woman

E. C. Stowe, American · 1856-1900

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Crew of Twenty-one Workmen Posing With Tools Outdoors], by Unknown

[Crew of Twenty-one Workmen Posing With Tools Outdoors]

Unknown · 1860s–80s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a man identified as "Uncle Charlie"

Tintype of a man identified as "Uncle Charlie"

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1900

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Chimney Scaffold, by J. Jeane

Chimney Scaffold

J. Jeane · 1860

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a woman, by John P. Doremus, American, 1827 - 1890

Tintype of a woman

John P. Doremus, American, 1827 - 1890 · 1870s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Two Young Workmen with Hatchets], by Unknown

[Two Young Workmen with Hatchets]

Unknown · 1860s–70s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a girl in a plaid dress

Tintype of a girl in a plaid dress

Artist not stated in the record · 1870s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Plasterers and Painters], by Unknown

[Plasterers and Painters]

Unknown · 1870s–80s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a Baptist minister, Rev. Frank Taylor, by Unidentified

Tintype of a Baptist minister, Rev. Frank Taylor

Unidentified · 1870s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Plasterer with Hawk and Trowel], by Unknown

[Plasterer with Hawk and Trowel]

Unknown · 1860s–70s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of men sitting on a car

Tintype of men sitting on a car

Artist not stated in the record · 20th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Two Seated Men with Calipers, T-Square, and Compass], by Unknown

[Two Seated Men with Calipers, T-Square, and Compass]

Unknown · 1870s–80s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of James Washington

Tintype of James Washington

Artist not stated in the record · late 19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Two Union Soldiers Holding Hands, Arms Around Each Other's Shoulders], by Unknown

[Two Union Soldiers Holding Hands, Arms Around Each Other's Shoulders]

Unknown · 1860s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of Andy Wilson, a "contraband" servant during the Civil War

Tintype of Andy Wilson, a "contraband" servant during the Civil War

Artist not stated in the record · 1860s

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Workman Holding a Wrench and Hammer], by Unknown

[Workman Holding a Wrench and Hammer]

Unknown · 1860s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype in carte-de-vsite of an unidentified woman, by Unidentified

Tintype in carte-de-vsite of an unidentified woman

Unidentified · late 19th century

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Two Young Men Seated with Their Arms Around Each Other], by Unknown

[Two Young Men Seated with Their Arms Around Each Other]

Unknown · 1860s

Public domainThe Met
Tintype of a Civil War soldier, by Unidentified

Tintype of a Civil War soldier

Unidentified · 1861 - 1865

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
[Two Men and a Boy with Outside Calipers, Backsaw, Square, and Frame Saw], by Unknown

[Two Men and a Boy with Outside Calipers, Backsaw, Square, and Frame Saw]

Unknown · 1860s

Public domainThe Met
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. 13 matched · 13 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.12 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 2861618 matched · 40 examined · 29 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.11 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-09-03 04:45 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.

Read the method
Elsewhere in the catalogue
Section 01Character index9 hand-compiled entries, each with sources, version scope, and a confidence value.Section 02NewsWhat has already cleared the US term, and what clears next — January 1, 2027.Section 03MethodThree status values, three confidence values, and copyright kept apart from trademark.