|
 |
| Image courtesy of Library of Congress |
LA GUARDIA, Fiorello Henry, a Representative from New York; born in New York City December 11,
1882; moved to Arizona; attended the public schools and high school at
Prescott, Ariz.; returned to New York; was graduated from the New York
University Law School in 1910; was admitted to the bar the same year and
commenced practice in New York City; served in the American Consular Service in
Budapest, Hungary, and in Trieste, Austria, 1901-1904; American consular agent
at Fiume, Hungary, 1904-1906; interpreter in the Immigration Service at Ellis
Island 1907-1910; deputy attorney general of the State of New York 1915-1917;
elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth and Sixty-sixth Congresses and
served from March 4, 1917, until December 31, 1919, when he resigned; during
the First World War absented himself from the House and on August 15, 1917, was
commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Air Service; promoted to the rank
of captain and later to that of major; commanded the United States air forces
on the Italian-Austrian front and was awarded the Italian War Cross; president
of the board of aldermen of New York City in 1920 and 1921; elected as a
Republican to the Sixty-eighth Congress, as an American Labor candidate to the
Sixty-ninth Congress, and as a Republican to the Seventieth, Seventy-first, and
Seventy-second Congresses (March 4, 1923-March 3, 1933); one of the managers
appointed by the House of Representatives in 1932 to conduct the impeachment
proceedings against Harold Louderback, judge of the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California, but left office before Senate
trial; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932 to the Seventy-third
Congress; served as mayor of New York City 1934-1945; president of the United
States Conference of Mayors 1936-1945; United States Director of Office of
Civilian Defense from May 1941 to February 1942; chairman of the United States
section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (United States and Canada)
1940-1946; special United States Ambassador to Brazil in 1946; director general
of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1946; died in
New York City September 20, 1947; interment in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
BibliographyElliott, Lawrence.
Little Flower: The Life and Times of Fiorello La Guardia. New
York: Morrow, 1983; La Guardia, Fiorello H.
The Making of an Insurgent, 1882-1919. Philadelphia:
Lippincott, 1948; Zinn, Howard.
La Guardia in Congress. 1959. Reprint, New York: Norton, 1969.
|