Vintage Travel Posters, Advertisements, and Films

In my post about Seward's Folly I included the image of a vintage advertisement for an Alaskan cruise on Canadian Pacific. That poster came from the Boston Public Library's Flickr collection of vintage travel posters. Most of the images in that collection are either in the public domain or have a Creative Commons license allowing for re-use with attribution.

Viintage (yes, two "i"s) is another source of vintage travel advertisements, posters, and postcards. Viintage features collections of vintage posters, postcards, and various printed advertisements that have been released into the public domain. Viintage hosts thousands images organized into dozens of categories like vintage travel posters, classic alphabet learning books, and vintage nursery rhymes images.

The Travel Film Archive is a collection of hundreds of travel films recorded between 1900 and 1970. The films were originally recorded to promote various places around the world as tourist destinations. In the archives you will find films about US National Parks, cities across the globe, and cultural events from around the world. The videos are available on The Travel Film Archive website and on YouTube.

Applications for Education
Some of theses travel posters and films could be good for students to use in presentations about the history and or appeal of various places around the world. Many of the posters could be used as part of a lesson on advertising methods (endorsement, appeal to emotions, etc) as well as lessons on the evolution of graphic designs.

Find Vintage Public Domain Posters and Advertisments on Viintage

Viintage is a neat site that developed by a husband and wife graphic design and photography team. Viintage features collections of vintage posters, postcards, and various printed advertisements that have been released into the public domain. Viintage hosts thousands images organized into dozens of categories like vintage travel posters, classic alphabet learning books, and vintage nursery rhymes images. You can download medium resolution (600px-3000px) copies of the images for free and higher resolutions are available to premium site members.

Applications for Education
Some of the travel posters available through Viintage could be good for students to use in presentations about the history and or appeal of various places around the world. Many of the Viintage graphics could be used as part of a lesson on advertising methods (endorsement, appeal to emotions, etc) as well as lessons on the evolution of graphic designs.

You might also consider having students use the Viintage graphics of children's stories to develop audio slideshows in which they narrate they stories depicted.