Striking pictorial map of the United States, by W.P.A. artist Paul Sample.
The map provides a fine look at agricultural America, paying tribute to America's farming and ranching traditions from coast to coast.
The map was one of three lithographic maps of the America published by Associated American Artists (AAA) as part of a lithograph series that also included Aaron Bohrod’s
America: Its History and William Gropper's America Its Folklore. As noted by Kyle Carsten Wyatt in Cartographers as Critics: Staking Claims in the Mapping of American Literature (p. 104-105)
Since 1937, AAA had sold affordable lithographs and etchings by social realist and regionalist artists, including Gropper, Thomas Hart Benton, John S. Curry, and Grant Wood. These signed limited editions, most of which sold by mail order for $5, were marketed toward middle-class Americans in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times and Life. In 1942, AAA began selling unsigned prints of pictorial maps, which were quite large compared to the lithographs and etchings that were already available. These “breath-taking panoramas” of American geography, history, and culture were marketed as “stunning
addition[s] to any home, office, library or school.
The original sketch held by Hood Museum at Dartmouth College: https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/objects/d.983.34.257