Puerto Rico: A Guide to the Island of Boriquen [American Guide Series] 1940 WPA Writers' Program ~ Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration

Title: Puerto Rico: A Guide to the Island of Boriquen [American Guide Series]

Author: Compiled and Written by the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration in Co-operation with the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration

Publication: New York: The University Society, Inc., 1940

Description: First Edition, 1940. Green cloth boards pictorially stamped in dark green. Edges modestly rubbed; a couple shallow indentations on spine. Map endpapers. Some underlining and several pages with observational notes made by a U.S. Navy officer who had been stationed in P.R. for several months in 1944. Light staining on a dozen or so pages where plant matter had been laid in. 48 pages of photographs. Fold-out map at rear (some writing on it). xli + 409 pages.

A first edition of the WPA guide for Puerto Rico, published as part of the with an interesting provenance. The book was purchased in September 1944 in San Juan by the U.S. Naval Reserve surgeon and Senior Medical Officer, Lennel Irwood Wright (1902-1961), who had been stationed at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station at Ceiba between February and August of 1944. His marginalia, which appears on several of the photographic pages, and on about a dozen other pages, provide his personal insights, observations, and opinions about the island and its condition at that time (as well as his low opinion of the native population).

Wright had served on the faculties at both the University of Illinois and the University of Kansas School of Medicine. After the war, he established his medical practice in Wichita, Kansas.

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good+

Keywords: American Guide Series, Lennel Wright, Lennel I. Wright, Roosevelt Roads, surgeon, Navy, USNR, Naval Reserve, World War II, WWII, WPA, Writers Program,