Serie de 25 fotos de Puerto Rico a color que aparecen en el libro The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico por Earl Parker Hanson (1899-1978), preparado con la cooperación del American Geographical Society y publicado en 1962. El libro contiene ilustraciones, mapas y fotos en blanco y negro, junto a una serie de 25 estampillas a color diseñadas para ser recortadas y pegadas en varios lugares indicados numéricamente en las páginas del libro.

En el libro se resaltan los beneficios del proyecto de modernización de Puerto Rico bajo el gobierno estadounidense y el proyecto de industrialización de la isla promovido desde 1940 por Luis Muñoz Marín (1898-1980). Según el autor del libro:

For centuries after the first settlement, Puerto Rico remained a poor, rather sleepy Spanish colony, producing little wealth, either for the crown or for its own inhabitants, living largely by smuggling to and from the North American British colonies and their succeeding United States. In 1898, as a result of the Spanish American War, Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain to the United States, and so began its modern period. American ways of living and doing things began to meet, and mingle with, old Spanish ways.

[…]

However, the island’s significance by now reaches far beyond its unique position in inter-American affairs. Its people have embarked energetically on a new way of life, with new ways of doing things and thinking about things, and these ways are being copied and studied by other people all over the world.

From 1898 until 1940, Puerto Rico was a blighted land; thousands of its people were permanently unemployed and had no land on which to grow food; other thousands were paid such low wages that a good life was impossible; hunger and actual starvation, as well as much disease, were the results.

Then, in 1940, the people elected to political power a new leader, Luis Munoz Marín, first as President of the Senate, and later, since 1948, as governor, reelected in 1952, 1956, and 1960.

He and his co-workers in the government have stirred the people to have new faith in themselves, new hopes for the future, and to work very hard toward attaining that future. They have also won the confidence of the United States. Both the United States government and the American business world are today doing everything possible to help the Puerto Ricans to help themselves out of their old life of misery. The results, in higher income, more jobs, improved health and education for the people of Puerto Rico, have been so dramatic that many people find it difficult to believe the official statistics.

About 1950, word began to get around that something startling was happening on this Caribbean island under the American flag. Official observers and students began to go to Puerto Rico, first in small numbers and largely from Latin America, but then, in an ever-swelling stream ‘ from Asia, Africa and the Pacific world as well. By 1962 more than 14,000 such visitors had been to Puerto Rico, sent by their own governments or sponsored by the United States, the Puerto Rican government, or the United Nations. Today they are going there at a rate of almost 1,500 per year, from virtually all the free world’s “underdeveloped” areas.

Las 25 estampillas fotográficas a color

Reproducimos a continuación las 25 estampillas a color del libro junto al texto descriptivo de cada una.

The Caribe Hilton Hotel, in San Juan, is one of the most famous in the entire Caribbean area. It was built in 1948 by the Puerto Rican government in order to stimulate the tourist industry, a plan so successful that other big luxurious hotels have been built since and more are planned for construction soon.
Founded in 1903, the University is the focal point of the island’s culture. It is also internationally important as a meeting ground of Latin American and North American cultures.
Ox-carts have by now almost disappeared in Puerto Rico. Because they must be pastured on land that could otherwise produce food for people, oxen are uneconomical in a country as crowded as is Puerto Rico.
Finished about 1771, Fort San Gerónimo played an important role in driving off the English, when the latter besieged San Juan in 1797. The fort is today on the grounds of the Caribe Hilton Hotel.
The Hats are typical Puerto Rican pavas, made and worn by the country people. Highly musical, the Puerto Ricans are famous for the beauty and originality of their songs.
Puerto Rico’s mountainous eastern half produces excellent tobacco. Sheds such as these are used for drying the leaf before it is rolled into cigars. The town of Comerío is seen in the background.
Across the bay from San Juan, Cataño was the scene of early efforts at industrialization, which began in 1941, and it is still an important manufacturing center.
The training by which field hands are turned into factory workers is an important part of the industrialization program. Puerto Ricans are excellent machine workers, skilled and dependable.
Built at a cost of $15 million, opened in 1955, San Juan’s airport is one of the busiest and best anywhere, and has recently enlarged to handle jet aircraft and a great increase of air travel to the island, including an almost constant shuttle between New York and Miami, as well as other cities of the Caribbean and South America.
Thousands of Puerto Rican workers cut sugar cane during the island’s harvest season, and they fly to the mainland United States to harvest the crops there, returning to Puerto Rico for the next cane crop.
The gaudy fire house of Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s south coast, is a point of unfailing interest for tourists. It was built in 1883 as an exhibition hall for Ponce’s fair of that year.
The energy and speed with which the Puerto Ricans are today building new houses, with government capital as well as private, is attracting attention and observers from all parts of the world.
Scene of many a battle against Spain’s enemies, San Juan’s fort of El Morro was in colonial times one of the Caribbean’s strongest. Today it is a military reservation, with a golf course on its grounds.
The tiny chapel, with a silver altar, was built about 1760 as an act of thanksgiving, after a rider had plunged over the city wall with his horse but was miraculously unhurt, though his horse was killed.
Before 1940 thousands of Puerto Ricans were literally starving. The present program of economic development has improved standards of living greatly, and so also the health and vigor of the people.
The Ferré Industries, which operate this cement plant, comprise Puerto Rico’s largest industrial organization, with iron works and factories for making bottles, clay products, paper, cardboard, and other things.
This village on the island’s south coast is an active tourist center, famous for its fishing as well as its Phosphorescent Bay, where every fish leaves a glowing tail on dark nights.
Crowded, small wooden houses such as these are today being rapidly torn down in all Puerto Rican cities, and replaced with modern, sanitary, fireproof houses of concrete.
In order to make low-cost electricity available for factories as well as home use, the Puerto Rican government is building many hydroelectric and steam power plants and is covering the island with a distribution network.
Predominantly Spanish in culture and blood, the Puerto Ricans have much Indian blood in their veins, some Negro blood and infusion of French, Corsican and Italian.
Excellent coffee is grown in Puerto Rico’s western mountains. Old-fashioned hand methods such as shown here are gradually being replaced by modern machinery for washing and drying.
After being cut, the cane is loaded onto small trucks, and pulled by tractors to the mill. To avoid loss of sugar-content, the cane must be ground within twenty-four hours after cutting.
Only about thirty miles east of San Juan, this beautiful, palm-fringed beach is one of Puerto Rico’s most popular recreation spots, attracting thousands of visitors.
Officially adopted in 1952 as the symbol of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, this flag was designed by a group of patriots in 1895. Today it is commonly flown side by side with the Stars and Stripes.
Begun in 1533 as a fortress, remodeled and added through the centuries, the beautiful Fortaleza is today the Governor’s Palace and executive mansion. The surrounding gardens are famous for their lush tropical beauty.

Portadas y muestra de algunas páginas del libro

Portadas del libro The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Interior del libro en donde vemos a mano izquierda las estampillas fotográficas a color.

Hoja con las 25 estampillas fotográficas a color.

El libro resalta los beneficios del proyecto de industrialización de Puerto Rico impulsado por Luis Muñoz Marín desde 1940. Observe el recuadro reservado para pegar la laminilla fotográfica a color, que tiene al centro el texto Plate 24.

Mapa de Puerto Rico que muestra las principales industrias de la isla en 1962.

Páginas interiores del libro en donde se indica el lugar para pegar las estampillas fotográficas (donde lee Plate 1 y Plate 9).

Sobre el autor del libro

En el libro aparece una breve biografía del autor Earl Parker Hanson que reproducimos a continuación. Observe que el autor vivió en Puerto Rico, fue consultor para el Departamento de Estado del gobierno de la isla y publicó varios libros sobre Puerto Rico.

ENGINEER, explorer, geographer, and author, Earl Parker Hanson has worked in many countries of Latin America, Africa, and the sub-arctic. In 1935-36 he began the work of economic planning in Puerto Rico. From 1949 to 1956 he was Professor of Geography and Chairman of the Department of Geography and Geology, at the University of Delaware. He now lives in Puerto Rico, where he is a consultant in the Commonwealth’s Department of State. Among his latest books are two about Puerto Rico: Transformation, The Story of Modern Puerto Rico; and Puerto Rico: Land of Wonders.

En la página web del Dartmouth College Library aparece una biografía más completa del autor:

Hanson, Earl Parker, 1899-1978

Earl Parker Hanson was born in Germany in 1899. He received his B.S. degree in 1922, from the University of Wisconsin. After graduation he spent three years in the Atacama Desert of Chile doing engineering and construction work as well as independent research in geography and archeology. In 1927, he went to Iceland as an engineer and investigator, doing reconnaissance work toward rural electrification on the island of Sagas, and studying possibilities for the Greenland-Iceland flying route to Europe. In 1929, he was sent to sub-arctic Canada to study pioneer movements in Canada’s northward expansion. From 1931-1933, Hanson traveled through the jungles of South America, the Amazon Basins and the Andes of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia making a scientific survey for the Carnegie Institute of Washington. In 1935, the National Resource Committee sent him to Puerto Rico as planning consultant on loan to the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration. Hanson resigned from the government in early 1937. He died in 1978.

Fuente: Libro The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico por Earl Parker Hanson, preparado con la cooperación del American Geographical Society y publicado por Nelson Doubleday, Inc., Garden City, N.Y. en 1962. Parte de la colección GeoIsla.