Free to Use and Reuse: Games for Fun and Relaxation

This sampler of games from the 18th to 21st centuries features card games, board games, and such outdoor games as penny pitching and jumping rope. You'll also find bingo, chess, hopscotch, marbles, and singing games. Sometimes, the picture is the game–a printed sheet of paper intended to be cut apart and played.

Browse more content that is free to use and reuse

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  Go. Color woodcut by Kiyonaga Torii, 1781-1789. Prints & Photographs Division

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  The donkey party game of putting the tail on the donkey. Woodcut and engraving copyright by Charles Zimmerling, 1889. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Sassony Arcade located on Broadway, Los Angeles, California. Digital photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2012. Prints & Photographs Division

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  The Ring Toss. Platinum photo by Clarence H. White, 1899. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Chinese-American girl playing hopscotch with American friends outside her home in Flatbush, New York, New York. Photo by Marjory Collins, 1942. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Juego de lotería. Relief etching by José Guadalupe Posada. Mexico City: Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, 1909-1920. Prints & Photographs Division

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  The Whist Party. Stereograph photo. New York, N.Y.: George Stacy, 1861-1866. Prints & Photographs Division

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  William Howard Taft seated at table playing cards with his wife and two men on boat enroute to Philippines. Photo, 1900. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Mistakes will happen, written by Grant Stewart. Theater poster. Cincinnati: Strobridge Lith. Co., 1898. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas Island, Virgin Islands. Playing dominoes in a small candy store. Film negative by Jack Delano, 1941. Prints & Photographs Division

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  Playing Poker at the Ninety-Six Ranch, Paradise Valley, Nevada. Photo by Suzi Jones, 1978. American Folklife Center

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  Penny-pitching at the fiesta, Taos, New Mexico. Photo by Russell Lee, 1940. Prints & Photographs Division

• Paper doll fashions issued by the Sunday Times-Herald Chicago. Chicago: Shober & Carqueville, Chicago, 1895. Prints & Photographs Division

• "Bingo." Sarasota trailer park, Sarasota, Florida. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1941. Prints & Photographs Division

• Snake game rules. Gameboard, 1840-1860. Prints & Photographs Division

• Old age versus the cross word puzzle. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1925. Prints & Photographs Division

• The Game of Fifteen, solved by the very merry mariner. Woodcut theatrical poster, 1880. Prints & Photographs Division

• Children's singing game, Cat Island, Bahamas. Photo by Alan Lomax, 1935. Prints & Photographs Division

• Singing games in the school yard, homestead school. Dailey, West Virginia. Photo by Arthur Rothstein, 1941. Prints & Photographs Division

• Jawor's Fun Golf, dice, p.m., Roseville, Michigan. Photo by John Margolies, 1986. Prints & Photographs Division

• Yorktown, Va., vicinity. Duc de Chartres, Comte de Paris, Prince de Joinville, and friends playing dominoes at a mess table during the Civil War. Photo by James F. Gibson, 1862. Prints & Photographs Division

• Soldiers gambling during a game of cards. Shoulder patches identify them as members of the 42nd Infantry Division, the "Rainbow Division," World War I. Photo by Bain News Service, 1915-1919. Prints & Photographs Division

• Will you make a fourth? World War I poster. Dublin: Department of Recruiting for Ireland, 1915. Prints & Photographs Division

• Tuskegee airmen playing cards in the officers' club in the evening. Photo by Toni Frissell, 1945. Prints & Photographs Division

• Washington, D.C. Soldiers waiting between trains playing cards in the game room at the United Nations service center. Photo by Esther Bubley, 1943. Prints & Photographs Division

• Chess players on Market Street in San Francisco, California. Digital photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2012. Prints & Photographs Division

• The Mansion of Happiness, an instructive, moral & entertaining amusement. Lithograph published by B. W. Thayer & Co., 1843. Prints & Photographs Division

• Children of Mormon farmer playing marbles in the living room. Santa Clara, Utah. Photo by Russell Lee, 1940. Prints & Photographs Division

• A quiet game of marbles. All the boys work in the Salisbury (N.C.) cotton mill. Photo by Lewis Hine, 1908. Prints & Photographs Division

• Will Rogers [plays horse-shoes]. Photo by Bain News Service, 1910? Prints & Photographs Division

• Jumping rope on sidewalk in one of the better neighborhoods of the Black Belt, Chicago, Illinois. Photo by Edwin Rosskam, 1941. Prints & Photographs Division.

• Men playing cards in restaurant, Shellpile, New Jersey. Photo by Arthur Rothstein, 1938. Prints & Photographs Division

• Family group playing cards in one of the new homes on the Hightstown Project, New Jersey. Photo by Carl Mydans, 1936. Prints & Photographs Division

• Une expédition aérienne jeu instructif et amusant pour la jeunesse. Chromolithograph, around 1895. Prints & Photographs Division

• New York, New York. Playing cards, using Braille playing cards, at the Lighthouse, an institution for the blind, at 111 East Fifty-ninth Street. Photo by Richard Boyer, 1944. Prints & Photographs Division

• A chair and checkers set (in which bottle caps are the checkers) outside the general store, Jackson, Mississippi. Digital photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2017. Prints & Photographs Division

• Poker game in Negro strawberry workers' bunkhouse. Hammond, Louisiana. Photo by Russell Lee, 1939. Prints & Photographs Division

• Pastime for little fingers. The girls' play-ground. Lithograph. Boston, Mass.: Pastime Publishing Co., 1881. Prints & Photographs Division

• Pastime for little fingers. The boys' play-ground. Lithograph. Boston, Mass.: Pastime Publishing Co., 1881. Prints & Photographs Division

• A game of backgammon in a Greek restaurant in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Photo by Jack Delano, 1941. Prints & Photographs Division