[View of crowd on shore watching passing ship, Puerto Rico]

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Few sights drew a crowd on a Puerto Rican shoreline like a passing ship, and Edwin Rosskam's photograph centers on the people who came down to watch one go by. The record dates it to between 1944 and 1946, a period when wartime shipping and the island's ties to the mainland shaped daily life in its ports. Rosskam had earlier worked for the Farm Security Administration documenting rural America, and here he turned his camera toward ordinary island scenes. The picture is worth studying for its attention to the watching crowd as much as to the vessel itself.

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