Jack Delano

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Jack Delano

Jack Delano (August 1, 1914 – August 12, 1997) was an American photographer for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which was later subsumed by the Office of War Information (OWI) in 1943 when the FSA was eliminated as "budget waste."

Delano was born in Kiev, Russia and moved to the United States in 1923 during the Great Depression. He started his graphic arts/photography and music training at the Settlement Music School and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After being awarded an art scholarship for his talents, he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) where he primarily studied illustration. While there, Delano was awarded the Kesson traveling fellowship which he took to Europe where he purchased a camera that got him interested in photography.

After graduating from the PAFA, Delano put forth a photographic project to the Federal Art Program: a study of mining conditions in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania anthracite coal area. Delano sent sample pictures to Roy Stryker and applied for a job at the FSA. Through the help of Edwin Rosskam and Marian Post, Stryker offered Delano a job at $2,300/year. As a condition of the job, Delano had to have his own car and license, which he had neither but acquired before moving to Washington, D.C. Prior to working at the FSA, Delano had done his own processing and developing but he didn't have to do either of that at the FSA. Other photographers working for the FSA include Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks.

He travelled to Puerto Rico in 1941 as a part of the FSA project. This trip had such a profound influence on him that he settled there permanently in 1946.

His wife, Irene, was a second cousin to fellow photographer Ben Shahn. In addition to his photographs, Delano also directed Los Peloteros, a Puerto Rican film about poor rural kids and their love for baseball. The film remains a classic in Puerto Rican cinema.