Below are examples of historical advertisements. Some provide free images, some require registration, and others charge a fee. Please, acknowledge any source if you use any of the images.
This well-developed, easily navigated site presents images and information for more than 7,000 advertisements printed primarily in the United States from 1911 to 1955. Material is drawn from the J. Walter Thompson Company Competitive Advertisements Collection of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University.
Adflip is a privately financed archive of more than 6,000 print advertisements published from 1940 to the present. Products advertised, including everything from dog food to DeSotos, are divided into 17 search categories, from automotive to travel, and eight themed categories such as comic books and obsolete products. The site may be searched by year, product type, and brand name.
Ads of the World (AotW) is an advertising archive and community
Contemporary and historical images from the Associated Press.
British & American Press Adverts
British & American Magazine Covers and Artwork including story Illustrations
Rare French & Spanish Magazine Art
British TV Advertising Stills
Mail Order Catalogues
Posters, Postcards, Menus, Theatre Programmes & other Ephemera
Wide selection of Vintage Magazines
Coloribus is a Creative Advertising & Commercials Archive with more than 2000000 ads.
Freedom on the Move is a database of fugitives from North American slavery.
With the advent of newspapers in the American colonies, enslavers posted “runaway ads” to try to locate fugitives. Additionally, jailers posted ads describing people they had apprehended in search of the enslavers who claimed the fugitives as property.
New York Times Archive offers page images of all pages from 1851 through 2009, including ads, and all are searchable; you can limit by "document type" to "display ad.
Access to 2200+ newspapers from 97 countries in 56 languages. A marvelous tool for seeing original print advertising, in context, and a tool for getting in touch with recent hot topics.
The Vanderbilt Television News Archive is a complete archive of national television news broadcasts since August 5, 1968. Individuals request loans of items from the collection for reference, study, classroom instruction, and research. They offer DVDs that are duplications of entire broadcasts as well as compilations of individual news stories specified by the borrower. Borrowers pay fees for the items loaned to cover the costs of providing the service.
Browser by type and then browse from image to image.
This colorful online exhibit showcases more than 900 original Works Project Administration posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program to support the arts.