Jack Delano, famous photographer of the brief FSA endeavor, had fallen in love with Puerto Rico, and settled there after a life of travel

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-street-vendor-in-yauco-daily-life-in-puerto-rico-c-1938-1942-by-jack-delano-fsa-jack-delano-fsa.html

But what is striking, is that everything I knew about Delano was only a brief time in his life, and though he was incredibly talented as a photographer, his life - like so many people - was a wide variety of different jobs, talents, and events that had nothing to do with the one view that most people have of a famous person.

for example, Jack Delano wasn't his name, he wasn't Italian, and during WW2 he crewed on a bomber. That really tears away everything you probably regarded him as. It does to me.

It's shocking to me, but I had the impression he was of Italian descent, because of the last name Delano, but he actually was born in Russia, Jacob Ovcharov was his name, and he came from a town in the Ukraine.

His family moved in 1923 to the USA and he was 9 years old, he studied music and art in Pennsylvania, where he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) from 1928 until 1932, he studied illustration and music.  While there, Delano was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, on which he chose to travel to Europe, where he bought a camera that got him interested in photography.

 After graduating from the PAFA, Delano proposed a photographic project to the Federal Art Project: a study of mining conditions in the Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania anthracite coal area. And there you go, Jack Delano became the photographer we all know of and admire.

While there, Delano was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship, on which he chose to travel to Europe, where he bought a camera that got him interested in photography.

After graduating from the PAFA, Delano proposed a photographic project to the Federal Art Project: a study of mining conditions in the Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania anthracite coal area.

In 1941 he traveled throughout Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and in 1943 traveled in Amarillo, and was drafted into the US Army Air Forces. So far, I haven't found out what he did in the Army

In 1957, Delano helped found Puerto Rico's first publicly funded educational television station, WIPR where he also acted as a station producer, composer, and program director