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. 17 shown for “Uncle Tom's Cabin” — 49 records examined, 30 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-09-03 10:43 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.
Dress

Dress

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1813

Public domainThe Met
Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1870

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Abolition Meeting Held at Willis's Rooms in Honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe, by William Henry Fisk

Abolition Meeting Held at Willis's Rooms in Honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe

William Henry Fisk · 1853

Public domainThe Met
Uncle Tom’s Cabin Broadside, by Seer, A. S.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Broadside

Seer, A. S.

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Harriet Beecher Stowe, by Southworth and Hawes

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Southworth and Hawes · 1850s

Public domainThe Met
Plate with Uncle Tom's Cabin illustration, by Unidentified

Plate with Uncle Tom's Cabin illustration

Unidentified · after 1852

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Cap

Cap

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1813

Public domainThe Met
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, Vol. I, by Stowe, Harriet Beecher

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, Vol. I

Stowe, Harriet Beecher · 1852

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Old Dominium and Uncle Tom's Tavern. Calaveras Grove, by Carleton E. Watkins

Old Dominium and Uncle Tom's Tavern. Calaveras Grove

Carleton E. Watkins · ca. 1878

Public domainThe Met
Uncle Tom's Cabin illustrated anti-slavery cover

Uncle Tom's Cabin illustrated anti-slavery cover

Artist not stated in the record · March 28, 1853

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly

Artist not stated in the record · 1852

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Artist not stated in the record · 1900

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Uncle Tom's Cabin - The Old Folks at Home, Kentucky, U.S.A.

Uncle Tom's Cabin - The Old Folks at Home, Kentucky, U.S.A.

Artist not stated in the record · 1895

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Samuel Green Sentenced to the Penitentiary for Ten Years for Having a Copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in His House, by Unidentified Artist

Samuel Green Sentenced to the Penitentiary for Ten Years for Having a Copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in His House

Unidentified Artist · 1872

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Harriet Beecher Stowe, by Alanson Fisher, 1807 - 1884

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Alanson Fisher, 1807 - 1884 · 1853

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Erie Lithography Co., active 1890 - 1900?

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Erie Lithography Co., active 1890 - 1900? · c. 1890

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Portrait of Reverend Josiah Henson (1789-1883), by Gardner, Alexander 1821-1882

Portrait of Reverend Josiah Henson (1789-1883)

Gardner, Alexander 1821-1882 · 1866

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. 9 matched · 9 examined · 4 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.5 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 10037 matched · 40 examined · 26 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 2026-09-03 10:43 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.