Kansas Map 1935 Pictorial Print - Topeka, Wichita, Kansas City

Ruth Taylor White drew this pictorial map of Kansas for Our U.S.A., A Gay Geography, a whimsical cartoon atlas published by Little, Brown, and Company in 1935 with text by Frank J. Taylor, covering all 48 states in fifty-eight full-color illustrated sheets. This sheet appears on page 41 of the atlas, printed in bright lithographed color and filled with small hand-drawn scenes rather than any conventional survey detail, a style built to entertain a Depression-era audience as much as inform it. Kansas is shown here bordered by Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado, its identity built almost entirely around the wheat, cattle, and oil that drove its economy through the 1930s. Ruth Taylor White and Frank Taylor built the atlas as a joint effort, her illustrations paired with his short, wry captions, and the finished sheets sold well enough during the Depression that Little, Brown kept the title in print for several years after its first release.

Topeka, Wichita, and Kansas City are each marked with their own small, colorful icon distinguishing one from another. Wheat farming dominates the illustrations across the state's central and western counties, the crop for which Kansas was already nationally known. Cattle ranching scenes appear alongside the wheat fields, while oil derricks mark the drilling activity that had become an increasingly important part of the state's economy by this date. Together the three cities, the wheat fields, and the oil derricks sketch a Kansas defined almost entirely by its agricultural and energy output rather than by any single landmark.

A Kansas family with farming or ranching roots will recognize this map's take on the state immediately, and it makes a distinctive gift for anyone who prefers a whimsical, Depression-era view of Kansas to a conventional antique survey. The store's other Kansas holdings are standard 19th-century survey maps; this 1935 Little, Brown sheet is the only pictorial, cartoon-style map of the state the collection carries. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.