Fiorello H. LaGuardia
LaGuardia redirects here. For the airport, see LaGuardia Airport. |
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia |
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (born
Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia December 11,
1882–
September 20,
1947) was the
Republican Mayor of New York from
1934 to
1945. He was popularly known as "the Little Flower," the translation of his
Italian first name, also perhaps a reference to his short stature of just 5 feet. According to modern historians, LaGuardia is considered one of New York City's greatest mayors because of his role in leading New York during the Great Depression.
LaGuardia Airport in Flushing,
Queens is named after him.
LaGuardia was born in
The Bronx to an
Italian lapsed-
Catholic father and a
Hungarian mother of
Jewish origin from
Trieste, and he was raised an
Episcopalian. His middle name
Enrico was changed to
Henry (the English form of
Enrico) when he was a child. He spent most of his childhood in
Prescott, Arizona. The family moved to his mother's hometown of
Trieste, Italy, after his father was discharged from his bandmaster position in the
U.S. Army in 1898. LaGuardia served in U.S. consulates in
Budapest,
Trieste, and
Fiume (1901–1906). Fiorello returned to the U.S. to continue his education at
New York University, and during this time he worked for
New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Children and as a translator for the U.S.
Immigration Service at
Ellis Island (1907–1910).
He became the Deputy
Attorney General of
New York in 1914. In 1916 he was elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives where he developed a reputation as a fiery and devoted reformer. In Congress, LaGuardia represented then-Italian
East Harlem.
LaGuardia briefly (1917-1919) served in the armed forces, commanding a unit of the
United States Army Air Service on the Italian/Austrian front in
World War I, rising to the rank of major.
In
1921 his wife died of
tuberculosis. LaGuardia, having nursed her through the 17 month ordeal, grew depressed, and turned to alcohol, spending most of the year following her death on an alcoholic binge. He recovered and became a
teetotaler.
LaGuardia ran for, and won, a seat in Congress again in
1922. Extending his record as a reformer, LaGuardia sponsored labor legislation and railed against immigration quotas. He was overwhelmingly defeated by incumbent
Jimmy Walker in the 1929 mayoral election. In 1932, along with Sen.
George Norris (R-NE), Rep. LaGuardia sponsored the
Norris-LaGuardia Act.
LaGuardia was elected mayor of
New York City on an anti-corruption "fusion" ticket during the
Great Depression, which united him in an uneasy alliance with New York's Jewish population and liberal bluebloods (Wasps). These included the famed architect and New York historian
Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes whose patrician manners LaGuardia detested. Surprisingly, the two men became friends. Phelps-Stokes had personally nursed his wife during the last five years of her life, during which she was paralyzed and speechless due to a series of strokes. On learning of Phelps-Stokes's ordeal, so like his own, LaGuardia ceased all bickering and the two developed genuine affection for each other.
LaGuardia was hardly an orthodox Republican. He also ran as the nominee of the
American Labor Party, a union-dominated anti-
Tammany grouping that also ran FDR for President from 1936 onward. LaGuardia also supported Roosevelt.
LaGuardia was the city's first
Italian-American mayor, but LaGuardia was far from being a typical Italian New Yorker. After all, he was a
Republican Episcopalian who had grown up in
Arizona, and had an
Istrian Jewish mother and a
Roman Catholic-turned-atheist
Italian father. He reportedly spoke seven languages, including
Hebrew,
Hungarian,
Italian, and
Yiddish.
LaGuardia is famous for, among other things, restoring the economic lifeblood of
New York City during and after the
Great Depression. His massive public works programs employed thousands of unemployed New Yorkers and his constant lobbying for federal government funds allowed New York to establish the foundation for its economic infrastructure. He was also well known for reading the comics on the
radio during a newspaper strike, and pushing to have a commercial airport (
Floyd Bennett Field, and now
LaGuardia Airport) within city limits. He was also a very outspoken and early critic of
Hitler and the
Nazi regime. In a public address as early as
1934, LaGuardia warned, "Part of [Hitler's] program is the complete annihilation of the Jews in Germany." In 1937, speaking before the Women's Division of the
American Jewish Congress, LaGuardia called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming
New York World's Fair: "a chamber of horrors" for "that brown-shirted fanatic."
LaGuardia was the director general for the
UNRRA in 1946.
LaGuardia loved music and conducting, and was famous for spontaneously conducting professional and student orchestras that he visited. He once said that the "most hopeful accomplishment" of his long administration as mayor was the creation of the High School of Music & Art in 1936, now the
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts[Steigman, Benjamin: Accent on Talent -- New York's High School of Music & Art Wayne State University Press, 1984 ISBN64-13873.]. In addition to LaGuardia High School, a number of other instututions are also named for him, including
LaGuardia Community College. He was also the subject of the
Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical
Fiorello!. He died in
New York City of
pancreatic cancer at the age of 64.
*
LaGuardia Commission, a study on the effects of
marijuana*
Fiorello La Guardia from the
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress*
Fiorello H. LaGuardia Collection of the La Guardia and Wagner Archives of the City University of New York
