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Vanishing Culture: Punch Card Knitting

The following guest post from digital humanities scholar Nichole Misako Nomura is part of our Vanishing Culture series, highlighting the power and importance of preservation in our digital age. Read more essays online or download the full report now.

Punch cards are a fascinating binary data storage format that aren’t just history—they’re still used by knitting machines today! Thanks to the Internet Archive and other collections, we still have access to historic punch cards, but there are some technical challenges to using them in the format they’re stored in. Meet a few folx working on those challenges. 

Punch card computation—the good old days, or the bad old days, depending on who you talk to—lives firmly in the land of “the old days” for most—a piece of history, with pedagogical and nostalgic benefit—but it’s alive and well in the textile world. 

Histories of computing frequently point to the Jacquard loom as the example of the “first” code,  used to create fabric in a variety of patterns—like this 1839 commemorative portrait of the Jacquard loom’s inventor, J.M. Jacquard: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002737214/. These looms use punch cards to lift warp threads above or below the weft, allowing for the mechanized creation of non-repeating patterns across the loom. (https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_645517

While the Jacquard loom gets all the attention for being the first code, the punch card knitting machine transitioned from being a Jacquard attachment on lace and knitting machines in industrial textile production to the kind of local, DIY code that a lot of people in textiles interacted with—many of whom were women. By the 1970s, they were used by people knitting for themselves and their families, for take-home piece-work, and in textile factory settings. The punch card machine was eventually replaced in commercial and, if you can afford it, home contexts by machines that could control individual needles, instead of depending on a punch card’s repeat—but the machines are still in use in a number of hobbyist workshops (like my own!) and are even still in  production (albeit much-reduced). 

The knitting machines I own share their punch card dimensions (24 stitches wide) with one of the first punch cards (the Hollerith card, used for the 1890 census, was a 24-column punch card). They’re an important piece of computing history—and crucially, one of the few that isn’t only history because a broad community of people, on- and off-line, are still sharing knowledge on how to hack, restore, and use them. 

All punch cards are fundamentally digital, even if we don’t generally think of “digital” as a property physical objects can have. It is only recently that our associations of computing with “the cloud” and other ephemeral metaphors have superseded the fundamentally physical processes that support computation. Working with knitting machine punch cards reminds me that the cloud is a metaphor, and lets me own and manipulate my code in a way I find both challenging and creatively liberating. 

The coolest thing about knitting punch cards is that they really are just sequences of “yes” and “no”—and that information is actionable in a wide variety of machines, all of which perform different functions based on that information. Some machines can knit two different colors at once—one color is “yes,” and the other is “no.” Others can skip the stitches marked as “no.” Some machines can make tuck or slip stitches, and others still do something called “weaving,” a variation on the aforementioned two-color knitting. The information encoded by these punch cards, regardless of the actual dimensions of the cards, is interoperable across most machines—and when it is not, it is because the number of holes in the punch card doesn’t permit the same numeric repeat (30 and 24 are divisible by a similar, but not identical, set of numbers). 

There are a lot of punch card knitting patterns stored on the internet, found in multi-purpose archives like the Internet Archive and in countless community-hosted Google Drives. Unlike a pattern written for hand-knitting, these punch cards are not, strictly-speaking, usable in the format they are stored in. While I could knit a sweater from a set of directions that look like knit 1, purl 40 from an image, working with images of punch card knitting patterns requires a different workflow—one that, counterintuitively, is challenging because of the digital nature of the punch card itself. 

Digitizing the already-digital

Knitting machine punchcards are relatively easy to digitize in a way that preserves the information, but relatively difficult to digitize in a way that makes the transition back from stored-on-the-computer to stored-in-physical-material feasible. It is entirely possible to recreate a punch card using an image—by hand, laboriously, with a physical hole punch. (Image: https://archive.org/details/handypunch/HandyPunchDirections/mode/2up) Usually I work row-by-row, with a ruler across the image, to make sure I’m putting holes in the right spots and chanting things like “3 yes, 1 no, 3 yes, 4 no” in repeating patterns. It is error-prone, but consistent with how generations pre-internet worked with these patterns—translating an image in a book or magazine into binary data of “punch this, not that.” 

However, those with more patience for debugging than patience for tedious card-punching have been experimenting with a variety of methods that allow for computer-controlled punching—or, more often, cutting that imitates punching. The Cricut is the standout piece of hardware here, although any machine that can precision cut paper using code will do. These machines, called CNC machines (CNC stands for “computer numerical control”), can have laser or blade attachments, and they work the same way as the massive plasma cutters used for cutting steel. A layer of software, which can be open-source or proprietary, translates an image stored as a SVG (scalable vector graphic) into strings of numbers that control the cutting head. 

SVGs aren’t that hard to generate off of images; the challenge here is generating an SVG off an image that actually fits in a punch card knitting machine. There is exactly one spot a hole can go that will work with the dimensions of a knitting machine, and unfortunately, low-quality scans (even pretty-good quality scans) are often too noisy to make it possible to blow up the image and then cut out all the dark spots. I tried, and was rewarded with a punch card that jammed, ripped, and complained loudly for several rows before I gave up. With higher-quality scans, this one-to-one kind of reproduction might work—but only for the machine the punch card was originally designed for. So there’s an incentive to extract the information in those punch cards in a way that is not tied to the specific dimensions of one knitting machine or another. Knitting magazines frequently turned to standardized grid formats for this, preserving the information (“yes, no, yes, yes, no”) but not the specific dimensions of any given punch card. 

I work with punch cards in my home workshop for fun, but I’m also fortunate enough to work with them at Stanford’s Textile Makerspace, where Quinn Dombrowski has been teaching data visualization using textiles on an assortment of knitting machines, looms, and sewing machines. Quinn’s colleague Simon Wiles, a Digital Scholarship Research Developer at Stanford’s Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research, has worked on a computer-vision approach for converting images of punch cards into data that could be used to generate new physical punch cards. He previously worked on an incredible digitization effort on behalf of the Stanford Libraries to digitize their player piano rolls, which posed related technical challenges, so knitting-machine punch cards seemed like a challenge right up his alley. 

When I asked Simon to describe his ideal digitization and preservation workflow for knitting machine punch cards, he said something that surprised me—that the encoded information preserved in magazines and books might be a better starting place than the punch cards themselves, depending on the goals of the project. It’s really hard to scan a punch card well. He pointed out that all sorts of things happen to physical punch cards that make them harder to digitize—they get bent or torn (and in the case of the player piano rolls he’s worked on, people repair and modify them in a variety of ways)—all of which are interesting material information about use, but which pose challenges for computer vision. The question of what to do with a hole that has been taped over is not only a creative decision, but also a technical one: will the scan be able to capture that? Do we introduce a new character to represent the tape in the encoding? Not that magazines are foolproof, he stresses—there are plenty of challenges in digitizing shiny paper, especially if one is trying to do it quickly or automatically. 

Regardless of source material, Simon stresses the importance of high-quality scans: “From the point of view of posterity: the scan quality is really important—preserve it the best you can: things that are difficult to parse now will only get easier to parse in the future.”

Punch Card Encoding 

Storing the parse—and circulating that information without having to repeat the process of either manual or computer-vision-assisted encoding—relies, at the moment, on community-supported infrastructure. 

The format accepted by Brenda A. Bell’s generator, which generates SVGs for a given punch card style based on a user’s plain text file, has become one of the de facto encodings for this information as a .txt file encoded in ASCII—a way to archive and share punch cards that skips over the limitations of image-based archiving, even as it requires more upfront investment in labor. See image below for an example of what this looks like. 

Text files are a lot smaller than images, and can be stored easily on both personal hard drives and cloud storage. There are many community-run Google Drives that act as repositories for these punch cards. As far as storing and circulating go, the ASCII format accepted by Bell’s generator offers a lot in terms of flexibility—allowing us to quickly remix, edit, and modify punch card patterns using lightweight, open-source software, even if the current format decontextualizes the information from its original conditions of use. Simon pointed out that a standardized metadata structure could do a lot there—maybe a standardized plain-text header—and I imagine what I could do with a corpus of punch card encoding linked to metadata about its provenance and digitization and to source images stored somewhere like the Internet Archive. What would we learn about knitting and textile history? What creative remixes would be possible? 

Punch cards preserve the past and future

Knitting punch cards are an important part of any feminist computing history, and surprisingly resilient. They’re interoperable across machines with the same repeat, can be stored as physical (but still fundamentally digital) copies without worrying about hard drives going bad or requiring ongoing power consumption, and are also, in the age of seemingly-endless proprietary software and terms and conditions, refreshingly punk, in a minimal computing, open-source sort of way. How many people actually read the source code of the open-source software they use? Punch cards are the source, in something so fundamentally binary that fluency is not hard to come by. (Fluency in binary for almost all other tasks is nearly impossible.) I can repeat a row as many times as I wish. I can change whether my machine ignores the 1s, knits the 1s, purls the 1s, etc. I can perform subsequent operations on the punch card’s outputs with manual manipulation. And I own it. I own my knitting machine, can take it apart and repair it without violating some terms of service, and can hack and modify it and my punch cards to my heart’s content. 

In a dream world, we’d have naming conventions or databases that let us link the .txt files to their corresponding stored images, in a system that balances the practicalities of storage and future use with the incredibly rich history available to us in the images. Punch card archiving supports an active, developing space where folx continue to develop computational and coding expertise in a variety of formats and ways—from working with mathematical modeling software to generate new punch cards to working out new designs with a hole punch and the memory cartridges at their machine. Our digitization and archiving practices can help us better understand the history of computing at the same time as they support an ongoing community working in creative computation. The Internet Archive and other community archives—which Simon says “are our best hope against enclosure”—don’t only preserve history, they enable communities to continue using and developing our technological resources. 

About the author

Nichole Misako Nomura has a PhD from Stanford in English and an MA in Education, and studies digital humanities pedagogy. She’s currently an Associate Director at the Stanford Literary Lab, a digital-humanities research collective, and a lecturer in the Stanford Department of English.

Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive

Whitehouse.gov captures from: 2008 Sept. 15; 2013 Mar. 21; 2017 Feb. 3; and 2021 Feb. 25

Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations.

These “End of Term” (EOT) Web Archive projects have been completed for term transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, with 2024 well underway. The effort preserves a record of the U.S. government as it changes over time for historical and research purposes.

With two-thirds of the process complete, the 2024/2025 EOT crawl has collected more than 500 terabytes of material, including more than 100 million unique web pages. All this information, produced by the U.S. government—the largest publisher in the world—is preserved and available for public access at the Internet Archive.

“Access by the people to the records and output of the government is critical,” said Mark Graham, director of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and a participant in the EOT Web Archive project. “Much of the material published by the government has health, safety, security and education benefits for us all.”

The EOT Web Archive project is part of the Internet Archive’s daily routine of recording what’s happening on the web. For more than 25 years, the Internet Archive has worked to preserve material from web-based social media platforms, news sources, governments, and elsewhere across the web. Access to these preserved web pages is provided by the Wayback Machine. “It’s just part of what we do day in and day out,” Graham said. 

To support the EOT Web Archive project, the Internet Archive devotes staff and technical infrastructure to focus on preserving U.S. government sites. The web archives are based on seed lists of government websites and nominations from the general public. Coverage includes websites in the .gov and .mil web domains, as well as government websites hosted on .org, .edu, and other top level domains. 

The Internet Archive provides a variety of discovery and access interfaces to help the public search and understand the material, including APIs and a full text index of the collection. Researchers, journalists, students, and citizens from across the political spectrum rely on these archives to help understand changes on policy, regulations, staffing and other dimensions of the U.S. government. 

As an added layer of preservation, the 2024/2025 EOT Web Archive will be uploaded to the Filecoin network for long-term storage, where previous term archives are already stored. While separate from the EOT collaboration, this effort is part of the Internet Archive’s Democracy’s Library project. Filecoin Foundation (FF) and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) support Democracy’s Library to ensure public access to government research and publications worldwide.

According to Graham, the large volume of material in the 2024/2025 EOT crawl is because the team gets better with experience every term, and an increasing use of the web as a publishing platform means more material to archive. He also credits the EOT Web Archive’s success to the support and collaboration from its partners.

Web archiving is more than just preserving history—it’s about ensuring access to information for future generations.The End of Term Web Archive serves to safeguard versions of government websites that might otherwise be lost. By preserving this information and making it accessible, the EOT Web Archive has empowered researchers, journalists and citizens to trace the evolution of government policies and decisions.

More questions? Visit https://eotarchive.org/ to learn more about the End of Term Web Archive.

A Red-Carpet Affair: Celebrating Public Domain Day 2025 in 1929 Hollywood Style

Lights, camera, preservation! On a star-studded evening at the Internet Archive, we rolled out the red carpet to honor the creative works from 1929 and the sound recordings from 1924 that entered the public domain in 2025. And what better way to celebrate than with a glamorous, Oscar-inspired soirée?

Guests arrived in true 1920s fashion, riding in a vintage convertible before stepping onto the red carpet, where they were met by the spirited Raining Chainsaws street theater troupe, who transformed into a fleet of eager, old-time paparazzi—flashing cameras, barking questions, and adding a touch of whimsy and Hollywood magic to the night.

📸 Check out photos from the red carpet!

Inside the Internet Archive, attendees sipped on French 75s and Old-Fashioneds, classic cocktails that transported us back to the final, glittering moments of the Roaring Twenties. The theme of the night? 1929—the year of the very first Academy Awards—and we honored this cinematic milestone with an evening of film, history, and remixing of the past.

🎞 Lecture by George Evelyn on Disney’s The Skeleton Dance
Animation historian George Evelyn enlightened the audience with a viewing of The Skeleton Dance, the first of Disney’s Silly Symphonies. With its pioneering use of synchronized sound and animation, the 1929 short was a perfect reminder of how creativity from the past continues to shape the present.

🎬 Public Domain Film Remix Contest Screening
What happens when today’s creators remix yesterday’s masterpieces? Our Public Domain Film Remix Contest showcased the most inventive reinterpretations of public domain classics, where old Hollywood met modern storytelling in unexpected and thrilling ways. View all the winners, honorable mentions and submissions from this year’s contest.

👀 Watch the livestream of the night’s festivities

As the evening came to a close, guests toasted to the future of open culture, celebrating the power of preservation, creativity, and the public domain. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this dazzling night of history, cinema, and community!

Announcing the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest Winners & Honorable Mentions

We’re thrilled to unveil the creativity of our top three winners and three honorable mentions in this year’s Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest. These remarkable films not only reimagined and transformed public domain works but also demonstrated the boundless potential of remixing creative works to create something new.

Watch the winning entries & honorable mentions below. Renowned film archivist Rick Prelinger returned to lead the jury, comprised of film professionals and enthusiasts including Simone Elias, Lara Gabrielle, BZ Petroff, and Theo Unkrich, offering insightful commentary on each selection and its standout qualities.

Explore all 140+ submissions at the 2025 Public Domain Day Film Remix Contest collection at the Internet Archive.


First Place: “When I Leave the World Behind” by Queline Meadows

https://archive.org/embed/when_i_leave_the_world_behind_remix

From Rick: The jury was deeply impressed by Queline Meadows’s inspired mix of movies, images, music and text woven into a subtle and emotionally affecting video expressing a strong sense of nostalgia and the irretrievable passage of time.


Second Place: “The Archive Boogie” by Samantha Close

https://archive.org/embed/the-archive-boogie

1929 was a great year for the movies! Filmmaker Samantha Close expresses both the breadth of 1929’s production and the eternal bounty of the public domain, using images from 1929’s films and public domain images from elsewhere and elsewhen.


Third Place: “THE SITUATIONSHIP” by Samara Meyer

https://archive.org/embed/the-situationship

Meyer’s crowdpleasing film features the daring, dazzling “It Girl,” Clara Bow, who lights up the screen in more ways than one in this Sapphic love story.


Honorable Mention – History: “Moving Pictures Aren’t What They Used to Be” by Jeremy Floyd

https://archive.org/embed/moving-pictures-arent-what-they-used-to-be

Jeremy Floyd’s enjoyable piece pays tribute to an uninhibited period of filmmaking — Hollywood before the passage of the restrictive Production Code, when movies were filled with roguish suggestion and undisguised violence.


Honorable Mention – Home Movies: “Hoffman’s Honeymoon” by William Webb

https://archive.org/embed/hoffmanns-honeymoon-1

Of all film genres, home movies are the most numerous yet the least seen and known. Webb’s engaging video brings them into the foreground, adding voices from dramatic films in the public domain, to build a goofy but endearing narrative.


Honorable Mention – Live Action: “The Wayback Machine” by DIEGO DIAZ & CAN SARK

https://archive.org/embed/wayback-machine-4k

Diaz and Sark’s film is an audacious and yes, dopey exploration of the essential greatness of Internet Archive and the dread near-infinity of copyright.

WEDNESDAY: Celebrate Public Domain Day 2025 at the Internet Archive

Lights, camera, action! It’s time to roll out the red carpet and celebrate Public Domain Day, Oscar-style!

On Wednesday, we’re honoring all the legendary works that have entered the public domain in 2025. And what better way to do it than with a glamorous, Hollywood-inspired twist?

A recording of the live event can be viewed here:
https://archive.org/details/public-domain-day-2025-in-person-event-at-internet-archive-headquarters

Public Domain Day Celebration at the Internet Archive
⏰ 6pm – 10pm
📍 Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco
🎟️ $15 – REGISTER NOW. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

This year, we’re honoring 1929 — the year of the very first Academy Awards, held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, CA. So put on your finest attire and get ready for an Oscar Award winning evening.

Sip on a classic French 75 or an Old-Fashioned as we savor the final moments of the Roaring Twenties.

Lecture by George Evelyn on Disney’s Silly Symphonies – “The Skeleton Dance”
Join us for an insightful lecture by Animation Director George Evelyn as he explores Disney’s groundbreaking 1929 short, The Skeleton Dance, the first installment of the iconic Silly Symphonies series. Discover how this eerie, yet charming animation set the stage for the whimsical, music-driven cartoons we know and love today!

Screening of Our Film Mash-Up Winners
Stick around for the Film Mash-Up competition winners, showcasing creative, mind-blowing reinterpretations of classic public domain works. From quirky edits to unique remixes, you won’t want to miss these inventive new takes on timeless films!

Don’t miss this dazzling night of history, cinema, and celebration!

If you’re unable to attend in person, we will also be hosting a virtual celebration on January 22nd at 10am PT.

Public Domain Day Celebration at the Internet Archive
⏰ 6pm – 10pm
📍 Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco
🎟️ $15 – REGISTER NOW. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Public Domain Spotlight: Popeye

Over the last few years we have seen many new characters enter the public domain including Winnie-the-Pooh in 2022, Mickey Mouse in 2024, and now, Popeye in 2025! The character emerged from a comic strip called Thimble Theater, which was started in 1919 and originally centered around the characters Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl. Popeye made his first appearance in the series as a minor player in early 1929, and as his popularity grew, he later became the central focus of the comic.

Let’s take a look at who Popeye was as a character in 1929:

January 17, 1929

In his very first appearance, Popeye shows off his thorny side by retorting Castor Oyl’s question with a sly remark about being a cowboy. The strip also shows him in a traditional all white sailor get-up that does not reflect his later appearance.


February 14, 1929

Popeye wears a black shirt for the first time, which is more in line with his iconic appearance.


February 18, 1929

Popeye throws his first ever punch. This time against Ham Gravy, one of the main characters of the strip at this point. The title, “That Sailor’s No Gentleman”, is indicative of Popeye’s rough and tough demeanor that would come to define the character.


June 11, 1929

After being shot repeatedly nearly a month earlier, in May 1929, Popeye reemerges full of bullet holes to knock down a foe. His displays of super strength do not originate from spinach, but possibly from rubbing the head of the Whiffle Hen (as seen on May 16, 1929).


June 15, 1929

Olive Oyl displays her first inclinations of romantic interest toward Popeye stating she would like to give him a kiss. The two do not become romantically involved in 1929, but the seeds were planted early.


June 27, 1929

This strip sees Popeye leave until August. However, his departure is not even the main appeal of the strip as it instead focuses on Olive Oyl’s purchase of new clothing. This focus and Popeye’s long absence, he is gone for all of July, thus implies that he was not meant to be a long lasting character, but only around temporarily.


August 5, 1929

Following over a month-long absence, Popeye returns to help Castor Oyl determine if Olive’s new boyfriend is only there for her money. His return indicates his overwhelming popularity with the public that was soon to transpire into his status as unchallenged main character of the strip. The title of this strip too foreshadows this shift being titled: Popeye’s The Man.


August 27, 1929

Olive Oyl displays her first show of affection to Popeye with a kiss. Though this was a mistake as she believed Popeye to be someone else. Despite this, it is yet another early indicator of their soon to be romance.


October 12, 1929

Popeye and Castor Oyl set off to locate Castor’s newly purchased brass mine. Their duo pairing indicates Popeye’s increased status and stature within the strip as Castor was the undeniable main character of the strip up to this point. Popeye’s appearance here again followed a brief absence from the strip dating back to September 30, 1929.


October 22, 1929

Popeye and Castor discover that where the brass mine ought to be is instead a farmer. Popeye implores Castor to allow the farmer to stay on the land, thus showing off his tender heart. Notably this strip takes place just two days before Black Thursday, the start of the Wall Street crash of 1929.


November 4, 1929

This strip shows off a bit more of Popeye’s peculiar dialect and his penchant for curving authority. In the strip he asserts that he is only going to jail because Castor has implored him to.

The title of the panel, “That Jailer’s No Postage Stamp”, also appears to be a humorous play on odd dialects installing postage stamp in lieu of “sap”. In 1920s slang, sap referred to a foolish or gullible person. The title’s swapping of the two terms is reflective of Popeye’s own tendency to swap out words with similar meaning as a postage stamp and sap are both sticky.


November 7, 1929

Another display of Popeye’s superhuman strength as he rips the bars off the jail cell.


Throughout 1929, Popeye not only showcased his superhuman strength and distinctive wardrobe but also his unique dialect and a characteristic phrase, “blow me down.” These foundational elements of his character, present from his very inception, have now entered the public domain. As we continue to engage with and reinterpret Popeye in modern contexts, there are some complexities. 

Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, explains the following in regards to character copyrights in a post from 2025:

“First, under US copyright law, anyone is free to use characters as they appeared in public domain works. If those characters recur in later works that are still under copyright, the rights only extend to the newly added material in those works, not the underlying material from the public domain works—that content remains freely available.

Second, with newer versions of characters, copyright only extends to their features that qualify for protection. It is not enough for the new material to be different. The features must be “original, creative expression,” meaning that they were independently created (as opposed to copied from somewhere else) and possess at least a modicum of creativity. Mere “ideas” such as generic character traits are not copyrightable. Nor are “merely trivial” or “minuscule” variations added to the original characters. In addition, using commonplace elements that have become standard or indispensable (copyright law calls these “scènes à faire”) is not infringement.”

Jenkins, Jennifer, and James Boyle. “Public Domain Day 2025.” Duke University School of Law, December 2024. https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/.


As beloved characters enter the public domain, modern creators can give them a new gloss, recontextualizing them for a new audience. One memorable example is a 2023 horror movie starring a much darker vision of Winnie the Pooh: “Blood and Honey.” We look forward to seeing what modern reinterpretations of Popeye arise, now that his fundamental character traits belong to everyone as part of the public domain.

Public Domain Spotlight: The Skeleton Dance

Disney’s classic animated short, “The Skeleton Dance,” is now in the public domain (Duke Law). Why is that such a big deal? Watch as Internet Archive’s Sean Dudley, a researcher specializing in the public domain, takes viewers on a tour of what makes “The Skeleton Dance” special, and why the film being open to remix and reuse is important for creators.

On Social

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sean, and I’m a researcher with the Internet Archive. One of the most iconic pieces to become public domain this year was 1929’s “The Skeleton Dance.”

This Disney short is revolutionary. 

Its synchronization of music and animation still holds up. Primarily animated by Ub Iwerks, the short feature skeletons turning into Lovecraftian monsters and getting down to some really cool beats.

This was in no small part thanks to Carl Stalling, who would later become famous for doing a lot of Looney Tunes music. And really being accented by the “Mickey Mouseing” effect of timing the animation to the music.

The beauty of this short is that it’s already building on the public domain with the music that it’s utilizing and taking inspiration from previous artists like Thomas Rowlandson for the skeleton designs.

And now because it’s public domain, you are able to remix, reuse, or do whatever you want with it. Because it’s ours. It belongs to all of us.

Welcome to the Public Domain in 2025

Image credit: Montage of materials moving into the public domain in 2025. Duke Law Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Celebrate the public domain with the Internet Archive in the following ways:

  • Register for our Public Domain Day celebrations on January 22 – both virtual and in-person.
  • Submit a short film to our Public Domain Film Remix contest.
  • Explore the works that have entered the public domain in 2025, below.

On January 1, 2025, we celebrate published works from 1929 and published sound recordings from 1924 entering the public domain! The passage of these works into the public domain celebrates our shared cultural heritage. The ability to breathe new life into long forgotten works, remix the most popular and enduring works of the time, and to better circulate the oddities we find in thrift stores, attics, and on random pockets of the internet are now freely available for us all.

While not at the same blockbuster level as 2024 with Steamboat Willie’s passage into the public domain, works from 1929 still inhabit strong cultural significance today. The works of 1929 continue to capture the Lost Generation’s voice, the rise of sound film, and the emerging modern moment of the 1920s. 

Musical Compositions

Show tunes and Jazz dominated the year with many standards that we remember today first being published. While best known for the 1952 film of the same name, Singin’ in the Rain was first published in 1929 and serves as the inspiration for our remix contest this year. George Gershwin also officially published (and copyrighted) his suite An American in Paris following a premiere in late 1928.

Below is sheet music for some popular compositions of the time.

Literature

Reflections on World War I continued with A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, the first English translation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero. William Faulkner published his modernist novel The Sound and the Fury. A. A. Milne followed up 1928’s The House at Pooh Corner by adapting The Wind in the Willows into the play Toad of Toad Hall. Detective fiction thrived in 1929, with The Maltese Falcon serialized in Black Mask, Agatha Christie captivating readers with The Seven Dials Mystery, and the first Ellery Queen novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, making its debut. Explore our 1929 periodicals to find more hidden detective gems.

While not a towering work of literature, the first set of comic strips featuring Popeye also are joining the public domain. Popeye first made an appearance in Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Initially just a side character for an adventure arc featuring gambling and sailing, Popeye rose quickly to fame. By February 4, 1931 the Thimble Theatre would feature a subtitle, Starring Popeye, before being renamed just Popeye later on.

Below is a further selection of works from the year:

Dive into Archive’s literary collection to unearth more classics from 1929.

Films

Last year Mickey Mouse made a splash with Steamboat Willie cruising into the public domain. This year TWELVE more Mickey shorts join to flesh out the notable events of Mickey’s young career. He speaks his first words in The Karnival Kid, he wears gloves for the first time in The Opry House, and Ub Iwerks leaves the studio at year’s end with Wild Waves. Disney animation also kickstarted their Silly Symphonies series with the haunting tales The Skeleton Dance and Hell’s Bells.

In 1929, if your film wanted to have any attention it needed sound. Musical films were everywhere with The Broadway Melody winning the second ever Best Picture award at the Oscars, The Hollywood Revue introducing the world to “Singin’ in the Rain”, and the Marx Brothers making their big screen debut with The Cocoanuts.

Below is a list of more significant films from the year:

Our film remix contest is ongoing until January 17, 2025, so please upload your submissions! Read more here.

Additional resources

In honor of Public Domain Day, this post is published with a CC0 Waiver dedicating it to the public domain.

Celebrate the Public Domain with the Internet Archive

On January 1, 2025, creative works from 1929 and sound recordings from 1924 will enter the public domain in the US.

1929 marked the last gasp of the roaring 20s and ushered in the Great Depression, a major economic crisis that would span the next 12 years. One thing we can see nearly a century later is that, in good times and bad, human creativity, knowledge, and culture persist. That year, Virginia Woolfe published her groundbreaking essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” advocating for female freedom of expression. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) opened in New York City, featuring the works of Van Gough, Cezanne, and Gauguin. Major movie studios put out not one, but two musicals starring all Black casts: “Halleluja” and “Hearts of Dixie.” Disney continued the Mickey Mouse trend with a dozen new animated shorts. And of course famous songs like “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “Singin’ in the Rain” topped the charts.

Celebrate the public domain with us:

1. Creators: Enter the Public Domain Film Remix Contest

We invite filmmakers and artists of all skill levels to celebrate the public domain by creating and uploading 2–3 minute short films to the Internet Archive! Top entries will be awarded prizes up to $1,500. Contest details.

2. Virtual Celebration: January 22nd @ 10am PT

Join us on January 22 to get “that glorious feeling” of singin’ in the public domain! We’ll have an amazing virtual lineup of academics, librarians, musicians, artists and advocates coming together to celebrate this new class of works being free for everyone to enjoy. Register now!

3. In-Person Celebration: January 22nd @ 6pm PT

Please join us at our headquarters in San Francisco for a Celebration of the Public Domain! This year, we’re honoring 1929 — the year of the very first Academy Awards, held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, CA. Put on your finest attire and get ready for an award-worthy evening. Register now!

4. Explore the public domain

Check out our recent post for links to the newly opened public domain resources at the Internet Archive.

Additional resources

  • Learn more about what’s moving into the public domain in 2025 from Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle of Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
  • Public Domain Review has a festive countdown to 2025.
  • Interested in what’s happening with the public domain in Europe? Communia is hosting a one-day event on January 9 in Brussels.

College Radio’s Rich Legacy: Latest Updates from DLARC

Highlights include 1980s radio interviews with LL Cool J, Sonic Youth and more, 1960s amateur radio footage, college radio oral histories, and radio station correspondence from the 1940s-1960s 

By Jennifer Waits, Curator of the DLARC College Radio Collection

Feast your eyes and ears on the latest additions to the college radio collection within the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications! Over the past few months we’ve added materials from numerous college radio stations and archives, including vintage and contemporary audio, film, and video pieces. 

Recruitment flyer from New York University college radio station WNYU

Most recently, the archivists at New York University student radio station WNYU-FM have contributed a number of 1980s radio interviews with music luminaries, including LL Cool J, ESG, members of Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore in 1984 and Kim Gordon in 1986), Billy Idol, and Jello Biafra. Also in the WNYU collection is audio from the station’s inaugural FM broadcast in 1973, plus paper items like program guides, flyers, and correspondence.

Another “first” broadcast recording, from campus-only AM station WWEC in 1963, is part of the Elizabethtown College Radio collection. Adding even more context to the story of radio on this Pennsylvania-based college campus is a collection of interviews conducted in 2014-2015 as part of the WWEC Oral History Project. Other WWEC items include station meeting minutes, history documents and a  Top 30 list from 1974. Elizabethtown College’s radio efforts were also represented by work done by its publicity office. Hundreds of pages of scripts for the shows “Campus Calling” and “From the Elizabethtown College Campus,” are other new additions to DLARC.

As was the case at Elizabethtown College, Auburn University also produced promotional radio programs that aired on local stations. Among the items that we’ve added from Auburn University are more than 2,000 installments of the weekly radio show “AU Profiles,” airchecks and shows recorded at student radio station WEGL, and a set of interviews about the history of WEGL.

But perhaps my favorite recent audio-visual addition is a compilation of 1960s home movies that document activities of University of Pennsylvania’s amateur radio club. They reside in our new Penn Amateur Radio Club archive, which collects items from this historically-significant club that began as the Wireless Club of the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. Early student wireless clubs were the incubators for future broadcast stations, so we hope to increase the representation of both high school and collegiate amateur radio clubs in DLARC.

Another area of curatorial interest is college radio at women’s colleges, especially since many women’s colleges built radio stations during the early carrier current boom in the 1940s and 1950s. DLARC’s new Smith College Radio Club and Stations collection provides context for understanding the college radio landscape during this time and what it was like for new stations trying to get their start. Within the collection are numerous folders full of correspondence, items from college radio conferences (including one hosted by Smith College station WCSR), organizational documents, scripts, and program schedules. Newer materials include flyers and program guides from the currently operating FM station at Smith: WOZQ-FM.  

Additionally, we continue to grow our collection of Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS) materials. As mentioned in our July update, this college radio trade organization began in 1940 and has been hosting conventions and producing newsletters and other publications ever since. Since they don’t have their own archive, we’ve been piecing one together thanks to all the college radio stations and institutions that have carefully preserved IBS items over the years. 

As part of this effort, we added over 200 pages of IBS correspondence and related items from Smith College and have also sleuthed out various missing issues of IBS’ Journal of College Radio from a variety of sources, bringing our grand total to just about 100 issues. Do you have copies of IBS’ Journal of College Radio in your own collection? Our wish list includes College Radio (Volumes 1-3), Journal of College Radio (Volume 13.2, 19.4, 19.5, 20-22, 25.4 and any subsequent issues), and IBS newsletters and bulletins from many eras.

"Are you interested in radio" flyer from New York University college radio station WNYU

Finally, we have some new collections that we are just starting to populate. Take a peek at the WFMU and WHUS collections for more college radio goodies. And be sure to scope around DLARC College Radio to find other gems from stations where we haven’t established a designated collection. One of my favorites is a short animation demonstrating a Valentine’s Day-themed ‘zine from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s college radio station KCPR. 

The Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. DLARC invites radio clubs, radio stations, archives and individuals to submit material in any format. To contribute or ask questions about the project, contact: Kay Savetz at kay@archive.org.