Amadeo “A.P.”‘ Giannini, the story
goes, learned early about how money can make or break people’s lives.
When he was a child, a man shot his
Italian immigrant father to death because the elder Giannini owed the assailant
a dollar.
The younger Giannini, of course,
went on to have a much different relationship with money. In 1904, he started
the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. At the end of the 1920s, he changed the
name to Bank of America.
Mr. Giannini’s bank was a place
where working immigrants could save and get a loan. Bigger, more established
banks shunned the community Mr. Giannini served. He made loans on the streets
after the 1906 earthquake. San Francisco was still smoldering, and the banking
industry learned a lesson about how opportunity and responsibility could go
hand in hand.
When California was desperate for
funds to finish the Golden Gate Bridge in the Great Depression, Mr. Giannini’s
Bank of America bought the bonds that funded the bridge’s completion. The Bay
Area is celebrating the bridge’s 75th birthday this year.
There’s more to the legacy, but when
Mr. Giannini died in 1949, he had built the West Coast’s biggest bank and a
different breed of bank, at least in reputation. Bank of America was admired
and seemed to know instinctively how to make popular and profitable
investments.
These days, you have to wonder if
Mr. Giannini would recognize the bank he nurtured to life.
Rest from the WSJ here…
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