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Last updated: September 13, 2026
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Author portraits
The feed uses small, locally stored WebP derivatives of the sources listed below. Historical portraits remain subject to their independently stated terms. Profile images are decorative because each appears beside the author’s written name.
Mary Astell and Laozi are the only interpretive images. They were generated for this project after research did not establish an authentic portrait, and they are not presented as documentary likenesses.
- Adam Smith — Daderot / Wedgwood Museum, CC0 (2016 photograph of a 1787 medallion). Source record. Collection record. CC0 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record identifies the photograph as released under CC0 1.0.
- Charles Darwin — Julia Margaret Cameron / Art Institute of Chicago, public domain (circa 1868; carbon print dated 1875). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical photograph as public domain.
- Charles Dickens — Herbert Watkins, 1858, public domain (April 29, 1858). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical photograph as public domain.
- Frederick Douglass — George Kendall Warren / U.S. National Archives, public domain (circa 1879). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical photograph as public domain.
- Harriet A. Jacobs — Gilbert Studios, 1894; restored by Adam Cuerden, public domain (1894). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical photograph as public domain.
- Laozi — Interpretive image generated for Good Doomscroller (September 13, 2026). Authenticity research. Project-generated; no separate reuse license. This is an imagined, non-photorealistic depiction. It is not presented as an authentic likeness; Laozi's historical identity is disputed and no authentic portrait can be established. Generated in text-to-image mode with the OpenAI built-in image generator. Prompt summary: A clearly interpretive, non-photorealistic traditional Chinese ink-and-woodblock head-and-shoulders depiction of an elderly philosopher in plain robes, composed for a circular avatar with no text, characters, symbols, or watermark.
- Ludwig Nohl — Ed. Lange / Heidelberg University Library, public domain (photographed 1872–1883; published 1886). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this photograph from an 1886 publication as public domain.
- Margaret Cavendish — Peter Lely / The Portland Collection, public domain (1665). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this seventeenth-century painting as public domain.
- Mary Astell — Interpretive image generated for Good Doomscroller (September 13, 2026). Authenticity research. Project-generated; no separate reuse license. This is an imagined, non-photorealistic depiction. It is not presented as an authentic likeness; Project Vox reports that no depictions of Mary Astell are currently extant. Generated in text-to-image mode with the OpenAI built-in image generator. Prompt summary: A clearly interpretive, non-photorealistic late-seventeenth-century engraved head-and-shoulders depiction of an English woman writer and philosopher in restrained late Stuart clothing, composed for a circular avatar with no text, symbols, or watermark.
- Mary Somerville — James Rannie Swinton / Somerville College, Oxford, public domain (1844). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical painting as public domain.
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley — Richard Rothwell / National Portrait Gallery, London, public domain (1840). Source record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this historical painting as public domain.
- Michael Faraday — William Holl the Younger, after George Richmond / The Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0 (1852). Source record. Collection record. CC0 1.0. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Wikimedia Commons identify this Open Access image as CC0.
- Olaudah Equiano — Daniel Orme, after W. Denton / National Portrait Gallery, London, public domain (published March 1, 1789). Source record. Collection record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons file record marks this eighteenth-century engraving as public domain.
- Thomas Paine — Laurent Dabos / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, CC0 (circa 1792). Source record. CC0 1.0. The Smithsonian Institution and Wikimedia Commons identify this Open Access image as CC0.
- Herman Melville — Joseph Oriel Eaton / Houghton Library, Harvard University, public domain (May 1870). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies this 1870 painting and its faithful reproduction as public domain (PD-old-100-expired and PD-Art).
- Joseph Conrad — George Charles Beresford / National Portrait Gallery, London; grayscale version by Luciano Coda, public domain (1904 photograph; grayscale version 2020). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record marks this 1904 photograph as public domain in the United States through expired publication copyright and in countries with terms of life plus 80 years or fewer; Beresford died in 1938.
- L. Frank Baum — George Steckel / Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library, public domain (circa 1911). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies the photograph as published in 1911 and marks it public domain (PD-old-80-expired).
- Lewis Carroll — Lewis Carroll / National Portrait Gallery, London, public domain (June 2, 1857; first published 1898). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies this self-portrait as first published in The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898) and marks it public domain in the United States and under life-plus-100-year terms.
- Elizabeth Stoddard — The Morgesons, Henry T. Coates & Co., Philadelphia, 1901, public domain in the United States (photograph date unknown; published 1901). Source record. Collection record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record sources this historical portrait to the 1901 Philadelphia Coates edition of The Morgesons and tags it PD-US. The photographer is not identified; the publisher is not presented as the photographer.
- Nat Love — University of California, San Diego / Wikimedia Commons, public domain (date unknown; historical portrait published before 1931). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies Nat Love, credits the University of California, San Diego source, and marks the photograph public domain through expired U.S. publication copyright (PD-old-70-expired).
- Solomon Northup — Frederick M. Coffin / Nathaniel Orr, Twelve Years a Slave (1853), public domain in the United States (circa 1853). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies this engraving from the 1853 Derby and Miller edition of Twelve Years a Slave and marks it public domain in the United States (PD-US).
- Elizabeth Keckley — Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / Wikimedia Commons, public domain (date unknown; published before 1931). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies Elizabeth Keckley, credits the UNC source, and marks the historical photograph public domain through expired U.S. publication copyright (PD-old-70-expired).
- James Edward Austen-Leigh — Historical family-album photograph via Sotheby's / Wikimedia Commons, public domain in the United States (1860s). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies an 1860s family-album photograph of James Edward Austen-Leigh and tags it PD-US. Its photographer is unknown and the file record does not establish worldwide clearance.
- Margaret Fuller — Frederick T. Stuart, after John Plumbe / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, CC0 (circa 1870). Source record. Collection record. CC0 1.0. The Wikimedia Commons record marks this engraving and the Smithsonian Open Access image as CC0 and PD-old-100-expired. The source is National Portrait Gallery accession NPG.2018.7.
- Elizabeth Gaskell — George Richmond, 1851, public domain (1851). Source record. Public domain in the United States. The Wikimedia Commons record identifies George Richmond's 1851 portrait, notes his 1896 death, and marks the image public domain through expired U.S. publication copyright and life-plus-100-year terms.
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper — Unknown engraver / Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-75978, public domain (1872). Source record. Collection record. Public domain in the United States. The Library of Congress identifies this 1872 engraving as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and reports no known restrictions on publication; Wikimedia Commons marks it PD-US-expired.
- John Stuart Mill — John Watkins, 1865, public domain (1865). Source record. Collection record. Public Domain Mark 1.0. The National Portrait Gallery identifies this 1865 portrait and its photographer; Wikimedia Commons marks the photograph public domain under life-plus-100-year and expired U.S. publication terms.
- Okakura Kakuzō — Collection of the Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki, public domain (circa 1905). Source record. Collection record. Public domain. The Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art publishes this portrait as public domain and expressly permits free commercial or noncommercial use and cropping, while requesting collection credit where practical.
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