Fiorello Henry LA GUARDIA, Congress, NY (1882-1947)
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.
Bibliography
Elliott, 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.Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
