Pigs that serve themselves, roadside signs, prints and mascots. Every picture here is free to use; the licence and the photographer are under each one, and the page it came from is a click away.
Between about 1930 and 1945 an American restaurant could order its own postcards by the thousand. the whole piece →
Linen postcard of the Barbecue Lodge, Fayetteville, North Carolina: a low red-brick buildi — Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0Linen postcard of Clark's Restaurant at Santee, South Carolina, captioned with its highway — Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0Linen postcard of the Gresham Motor Court and Restaurant on a lake six miles north of Rale — Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0Linen postcard of Warren's Motel and Restaurant at Hardeeville, South Carolina. — Tichnor Brothers, Inc., Public domainLinen postcard of Warren's Restaurant and Motel on U.S. Route 301 at Pleasant Hill, North — Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0Linen postcard of the White House Restaurant on U.S. Route 1, the Raleigh Road, at Henders — Boston Public Library, CC BY 2.0
A small group of American political prints from the 1830s in which the barbecue is the joke and the pig is the politician. the whole piece →
The Political Barbecue, an 1834 lithograph: Andrew Jackson lies stripped on a grid iron ov — Henry R. Robinson, Public domainA printed Democratic ballot: MARTIN VAN BUREN for President, RICHARD M. JOHNSON for Vice P — Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Public domainGoing the Whole Hog, a lithograph published by H. R. Robinson of New York: an enormous sow — Henry R. Robinson, Public domainAn undated version of The Political Barbecue, captioned Going the whole hog, by an unknown — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain
Life-sized pig sculptures, painted by artists and set out on the sidewalks of Lexington, Davidson County. Uptown Lexington, Inc. the whole piece →
Several painted pig sculptures gathered together at the Lexington Barbecue Festival, Octob — Dennis Brown (Dennis Brown), CC BY 3.0Caterpiggar: a pig sculpture painted as a yellow Caterpillar bulldozer, with an exhaust st — Dennis Brown (Dennis Brown), CC BY 3.0Fire Hog: a pig sculpture painted as a red fire engine, with ladders down the side, a fire — Dennis Brown, CC BY 3.0Pork Knox: a pig sculpture painted with banknotes and coins all over it, a bar chart along — Dennis Brown, CC BY 3.0Pigsaw: a pig sculpture covered all over in jigsaw pieces, blue, white and pink. — Dennis Brown, CC BY 3.0Newbee: a pig sculpture banded in teal and gold with gold antennae and a gauzy wing laid o — Dennis Brown, CC BY 3.0
The sign a barbecue place puts at the road: a steel pylon with a lit box on top, neon or bulbs picking out a name, a bottler's disc above it, and a changeable letterboard underneath for the day's news. the whole piece →
A blue steel sign cabinet on a pole with STEVE'S and BAR-B-Q in white neon on two lines, a — John Margolies, Public domainA tall striped pylon carrying a red BAR-B-Q panel in bulb-lit capitals with a border of ye — John Margolies, Public domainThe same Bessinger's sign photographed side on. — John Margolies, Public domainA plain rectangular sign on a pole lettered BAR-B-Q with lamps around the border. Brownsvi — John Margolies, Public domainTwo old frame buildings on brick piers at dusk, lit from inside, with painted wooden board — anoldent, CC BY-SA 2.0A bronze tablet set into a stucco wall, lettered LEXINGTON BARBECUE, commemorating the sit — Dennis Brown, CC BY 3.0
The Farm Security Administration — a New Deal agency for rural poverty — kept photographers on the road from 1935, and their negatives went to the Library of Congress as federal work, free of copyright. the whole piece →
Men in hats and overalls sit on kitchen chairs in a chest-high drift of corn shucks, worki — Marion Post Wolcott, Public domainA second frame of the same corn shucking near Stem, Granville County, North Carolina, Nove — Marion Post Wolcott, Public domainAn unlabelled frame from the same corn shucking at Tally Ho near Stem, Granville County, N — Marion Post Wolcott, Public domainA second unlabelled frame from the same corn shucking near Stem, Granville County, North C — Marion Post Wolcott, Public domainA long table under a white cloth in a farmhouse room, ten or twelve men eating, glasses an — Marion Post Wolcott, Public domainColour transparency, 1939: a crowd under pines hung with Spanish moss at a Fourth of July — Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer, Public domain
One pig, drawn once, used everywhere a barbecue business puts its name: the sign, the menu, the sauce label, the takeout box, the trailer door, the roofline, the weather vane. the whole piece →
A pink pig in a red shirt lettered LITTLE JOE, cap on its head and hands behind its back, — John Margolies, Public domainThe Bessinger's sign at West Columbia photographed side on, showing the striped pylon carr — John Margolies, Public domainA flat sheet-metal pig cut in silhouette, running nose into the wind on a weather vane abo — Jay Cuthrell, CC BY-SA 2.0
A barbecue sign on which the pig is not the meat but the staff: a pig in a chef's toque carrying a covered tray, a pig in an apron at a pit, a pig in sunglasses eating a pork sandwich, a pig holding the restaurant's own… the whole piece →
Neon sign at night: a pink pig in blue wraparound sunglasses holds a pork sandwich in both — Carol M. Highsmith, Public domainNeon sign of the Red Pig Drive-In at Nahunta, Georgia: a white pig standing upright in a c — John Margolies, Public domainTall roadside sign photographed against a deep blue sky: a pink pig in a red shirt lettere — John Margolies, Public domainThe same Bessinger's sign at West Columbia, South Carolina, photographed side on, showing — John Margolies, Public domainThree Little Pigs Bar-B-Q, Memphis, on a wet January day: a smiling pig in blue dungarees — Thomas R Machnitzki (thomasmachnitzki.com), CC BY 3.0The building at Three Little Pigs Bar-B-Q, Memphis, with the roofline pigs and a catering — Thomas R Machnitzki (thomasmachnitzki.com), CC BY 3.0
