Illustrations of various insect species (predominantly beetles, flies, and ants) drawn with the intention of being featured in the text "Insects in Kansas" by the Kansas Department of Agriculture. Illustrations not selected for publishing are specified and still included within the collection.
Faculty members from the Department of Entomology at Kansas State College (now Kansas State University) in Manhattan received support (ca. 1940-43) from a somewhat unusual source to complete a work of practical utility describing the region’s insect fauna. Their patron was none other than the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - the largest agencies of their kind that provided employment relief during the Great Depression under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. More than a dozen and a half regional artists were recruited and trained in the exacting techniques of scientific illustration, for which stringent standards of performance were uniformly applied. Through their efforts, more than a hundred pen-and-ink habitus drawings were prepared for the identification manual, Insects in Kansas (1943), published by the Kansas State Board of Agriculture.