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I love this, but could you imagine if this were something done today? In the current political climate and news cycles it would be "look at how the stupid {{political_party}} is wasting your tax dollars!" or probably every worse/dumber things than that.

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This project wasn't undertaken for artistic reasons. It was done so that the US government had records and depictions of domestic produce that could be used in efforts to promote trade. Watercolors were almost certainly the best available option at the time.

Today it would be a waste of money. We have digital cameras and pretty good records of what produce American farmers grow without hiring several dozen artists to traipse around for years.

It creates jobs though, which is usually seen as positive, no? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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