Photographic Memories

In 1940, as a young photographer working for Roy Stryker's Historical Section of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Jack Delano traveled the length of the eastern seaboard recording the struggles of migrant workers still living in the shadow of the Depression. Late the following year, with the nation on the verge of war, Stryker sent him on a three-month assignment in Puerto Rico where the people he met radiated humor and generosity despite poverty worse than any he had seen in the continental United States. Back on the mainland, Delano traveled across the country photographing the homefront contributions of ethnic and minority groups and spent a month documenting the mobilized railroad system on freight trains between Chicago and California. After serving three years in the army, Delano settled in Puerto Rico, where for the last fifty years he has been a constant participant - as a photographer, filmmaker, television station director, book illustrator, cartoonist, and composer - in the island's cultural life.