Picturing “our colonial problem”: Puerto Rico and Jack Delano’s photographic humanism

Focusing on documentary photographer Jack Delano (1914–1997) and his time in Puerto Rico in 1946, this essay examines the development of photographic humanism at the start of the Cold War, when New Deal-era social programmes like the Farm Security Administration (FSA) make way for, and are transformed by, a growing consciousness of the United States as a colonial power. In Puerto Rico, this was a time of political and cultural self-reckoning, when the ruling political party attempted to curb pro-independence sentiment by, among other things, establishing social, cultural, and labour programmes that inspired a sense of autochthony in the population, despite the island’s status as a colony. Looking at photographic works, letters, and notes from Delano’s 1940s archive, I examine the photographer’s increasingly uneasy relationship with his medium as he entered the arena of Puerto Rican life and politics at this time. Through these readings, my discussion opens out to a broader consideration of mid-twentieth-century encounters of humanism, humanitarianism, and neocolonialism in the American hemisphere.