How about the plans published in the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's by Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. Issues of those magazines can be found in Google Books, and even though it will take some time to find them all, you'll find some interesting models in various small scale (mostly 1/600 and 1/1200)
Attached a sample,
click here for the original link to the article about a 1/1200 USS Yorktown, published in april 1939
In 1941, plans for a 1/792 C-3 freighter and an escort carrier were published
If there's any interest, I will start a seperate thread on how to get these plans, as I don't want to hijack this thread