As the island grapples with the aftermath and devastation left behind by Hurricane Maria, a series of fascinating historic images have come to light showing the lives of Puerto Ricans in the 1940s.
The images capture all sides of life in this period of Puerto Rican history, from the hustle and bustle on the streets of the capital city of San Juan, to the remote mountain villages.
Depicted among the black and white images is a large gathering of striking sugar workers in the town of Yabucoa.
Other photos show impoverished young women working in the street in the town of Lares, while some reveal the plight of a beggar and young child in San Juan.
All the images were taken by America photographer Jack Delano, who visited the island to document the working conditions of agricultural laborers but became infatuated with its people and way of life that he made Puerto Rico his permanent home.
Stunning photos revealed of 1940s Puerto Rico show a street vendor in Santurce, one of the biggest districts in San Juan
Two young girls in the central mountainous region of Utado are pictured in the photos from the 1940s
All of the photos were taken by US photograph Jack Delano, who captured this shot on the streets of Manati in 1942
Jack Delano originally visited the island to document the working conditions of agricultural laborers
The photographer became fell in love with its people and way of life that he made Puerto Rico his permanent home
A religious procession was photographed in Manuabo, a south eastern coastal city, in 1941
The images capture all sides of life in Puerto Rican history. Here is a photo of a street in the small town of Lares
A beggar and a younf boy are pictured on the street in the capital city of San Juan
The island has been a designated US territory since the late 1800s, making those born on the island American citizens.
Many of the images depict sugarcane workers either in the fields or on strike.
In the early 1900s, Puerto Rican sugar entered the US mainland. The industry grew dramatically until the 1930s and 1940s when the local Puerto Rican government enacted policies which stifled the growth of large cane-farms. Farm sizes fell and the Puerto Rican sugar industry’s productivity declined until the industry collapsed.
The photos are set during and in the aftermath of the collapse, leaving workers struggling to make ends meet.
Now the country is dealing with its worst environmental crisis in history due to Hurricane Maria.
But even before the hurricane hit the island, Puerto Rico was in crisis with a 45 per cent poverty rate and a national debt of $72million, leaving it defenseless in the face of the storm.
In the aftermath of Maria, the entirety of Puerto Rico’s power grid has been wiped out along with much of its agriculture with so far precious little restored.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been heavily criticized in recent weeks for its slow response to the crisis with the premier having despicably joked that it had ‘thrown our budget a little out of whack’.
The photographer captured a strike meeting in the southeast city of Yabucoa Puerto Rico in 1942
A barber shop in Bayamon, south of San Juan, where two men and a child stand at the doors
A worker unloads sugarcane at a depot in San Sebastian. Sugarcane is no longer as profitable on the island as it once was
A female coffee picker is pictured near the central town of Corozal in 1941
Laborers harvest sugarcane from a burned field near Guanica as the sugar industry declines in Puerto Rico
Jack Delano is the American photographer pictured in 1942 (left) and again in 1985.