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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); 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.
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