The Project: Photos of a Younger Land

 The Project is an ongoing series about WPA art in Connecticut. The series is so titled because writers and artists, in their letters and other communication, referred to the WPA as such. The series is inspired by the Art Inventory Project---which seeks to catalog every WPA work of art in the state---that has been underway for more than two years.

The photographer Jack Delano, who worked alongside Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange for the Farm Securities Administration (FSA) during the Depression, took a multitude of photos of Connecticut in the fall of 1940.

Although his name is not well known, his photos are truly masterful. His photos of Connecticut, all of which are searchable through the Library of Congress, document farms, towns, synagogues, mills and factories.

Delano permanently moved to Puerto Rico in 1947, yet his photos of the Northeast and beyond remain an insightful and moving portrait of a bygone era. 

I have asked a number of people around the state to choose a few of Delano's photographs which speak to them. Here, Nancy Finlay, the Curator of Graphics at the Connecticut Historical Society, talks about Delano's photos of the mills and the mill workers in Connecticut.