Jack Delano took this picture of the switch engine at work. He took many pictures of railroad scenes and illustrated the new role women played in keeping national transportation moving as America shifted into World War II planning. DeLano was born in Kiev, Russia in 1914 and moved to the United States in 1923. He started his schooling as an illustrator at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts but switched to photography while on a traveling fellowship awarded to him by the school.

After graduating, Delano put together a photographic study of mining conditions in Schuylkill county Pennsylvania. He sent it to Roy Stryker, head of the photographic program of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). With the help of Marian Post and Edwin Rosskam, Stryker offered Delano a job in 1940. From 1940 to 1943, Delano worked as an FSA photographer as well as for the Government of Puerto Rico. He served as a war photographer and settled in Puerto Rico after the war.

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was created in the Department of Agriculture in 1937. The FSA and its predecessor, the Resettlement Administration (RA), were New Deal programs designed to assist poor farmers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Roy Emerson Stryker was the head of a special photographic section in the RA and FSA from 1935-1942. The assistance to the farmers was to document the need for agricultural assistance and recording the results of the agency's efforts to address that need

Under the direction of Stryker, the documentation effort became a major social recording of life in America during the depression and into the start of WW II. What emerged was a focus on four principal areas: Americans at home, at work, and at play, with an emphasis on rural and small-town life; the adverse effects of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and increasing farm mechanization; displaced people migrating West or to industrial cities in search of work and America's mobilization for World War II.

The effort created opportunities for the emergence of significant photographic talent such as: Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, Walker Evans, and many others.

The Library of Congress preserves and maintains this vast collection. The FSA program merged into the Office of War Information (OWI) with America's preparation for war. The Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information (FSA /OWI) Collection contains 164,000 black and white negatives, 107,000 black and white photographic prints, and 1,610 color transparencies.

This image is taken from "Bound for Glory, America in Color, 1939-1943" and you can find out more about FSA photographs by clicking on the book listed below

Medium : 1 transparency : color

Created/Published : January, 1943

Creator : Jack Delano, photographer, 1914-1979

Part of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection housed in the Prints and Photographic Division of the Library of Congress.

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Product #: fsac1a34697