Fiorello Henry La Guardia (11 December 1882-20 September 1947) was a member of the US House of Representatives for New York's 14th district (R) from 4 March 1917 to 31 December 1919, succeeding Michael F. Farley and preceding Nathan D. Perlman and of the 20th district from 4 March 1923 to 3 March 1933, succeeding Isaac Siegel and preceding James J. Lanzetta; he also served as Mayor of New York City from 1 January 1934 to 31 December 1945, succeeding John P. O'Brien and preceding William O'Dwyer. La Guardia was a member of the Republican Party and the first Italian-American mayor of New York City, but his life was anything but typical; the son of a Catholic Italian father and a Jewish mother, he was a lifelong Episcopalian, and he was a social democratic member of a conservative party. He supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he helped to fight against the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine.
Biography[]
Fiorello Enrico La Guardia was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City on 11 December 1882 to an Italian immigrant father and an Italian-Jewish mother. La Guardia graduated from the Dwight School before working for the State Department in Budapest, Trieste, and Fiume in Austria-Hungary. In 1910, upon graduation from the New York University School of Law, he was admitted to the bar. In January 1915, he became Deputy Attorney General of New York, and he was also elected to the US House of Representatives in 1917. He commanded US Army planes on the Italian front of World War I, and he resigned his seat in the US Congress in 1919. From 1920 to 1921, he was President of the Board of Aldermen, and he was once more elected to Congress in 1923. The irascible, energetic, and charismatic La Guardia appealed across party lines; he was a Republican Party member, but he was a social democrat who championed progressive causes. He supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and Roosevelt rewarded him by cutting of patronage to his opponents and funding his programs. He revitalized New York City, restored public faith in City Hall, unified the transit system, directed the building of low-cost public housing, public playgrounds, parks, and airports, reorganized the NYPD, defeated the powerful Tammany Hall political machine, and reestablished employment on merit in place of patronage jobs. La Guardia championed ethnic minorities and immigrants, and the tough-minded reform mayor cleaned out city corruption, brought in gifted experts, and fixed upon the city a broad sense of responsibility for its own citizens. La Guardia left office as Mayor in 1945, and he died two years later at the age of 64 in Riverdale, The Bronx.