The Library of Congress has contributed more than 5,400 images associated with its Eyes of the Nation project to the Artstor Digital Library.

In 1997, the Library published Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (New York: Knopf, 1997). The book offered a pictorial overview of American history, with approximately 500 illustrations, most reproducing public domain objects within the Library’s special collections (e.g. prints, posters, maps, manuscript pages, photographs, designs, movie stills, cartoons, etc.).

According to James H. Billington, then-Librarian of Congress, these images were selected from the library’s vast collections to “show how Americans have viewed themselves, and have been viewed by others, in the course of this great work-in-progress that is the United States.” (Eyes of the Nation, preface). Simultaneous with the publication of the book, digital versions with many more images were published by ArtLook.

The collection in the Artstor Digital Library is comprised of a selection of diverse images from both the original book, as well as the larger body of digital photographs.

See also the Library of Congress Collection in Artstor.