A.P. Giannini; "Bank
of
The
ANNOTICO Report
A. P. Giannini, besides being one of the largest scale heroes of
the San Francisco Earthquake, by financing the requirements of the
"working class", heretofore almost unknown, also almost single
handedly
Giannini
started out in the Produce business, retired and briefly moved into the savings
and loan, before establishing the Bank of Italy in
The Bank of Italy suffered damage in the earthquake itself, and was directly threatened by the subsequent fires. Giannini saved his bank by filling a horse-drawn wagon with
$2 million in gold and securities, covering the valuables with vegetables, and
rescuing the resources. The next morning, he opened for business on a wharf on
Giannini is credited with a number of important
changes in the banking industry. He believed deeply in the importance of
lending money to working-class people, a gr! oup that had been previously
ignored by banks as not being credit worthy. Giannini’s
Bank of Italy offered good rates, bilingual tellers and a welcoming environment
for farmers, small businessmen and immigrants.
The year after the
Banking on
Earthquakes
Lisa Rossbacher
What do earthquakes and
banking have in common? The link is the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, which
led directly to the founding of Bank of America. In a random — and
admittedly unscientific — survey of bankers and geologists, more bankers
knew the connection between the
In
1906, A.P. Giannini had already retired from selling
produce and begun working in the banking business, moving from a savings and
loan to establishing the Bank of Italy in
Stories differ about whether the building that housed the Bank of Italy
suffered major damage in the earthquake itself, but the bank was directly
threatened by the subsequent fires that devastated much of downtown
Giannini is credited with a number of important
changes in the banking industry. He believed deeply in the importance of
lending money to working-class people, a group that had been previously ignored
by banks as not being credit worthy. Giannini’s
Bank of Italy offered good rates, bilingual tellers and a welcoming environment
for farmers, small businessmen and immigrants.
The year after the
Giannini purchased Bank of America in 1929, largely
because he wanted to acquire the name. And nine years after Giannini’s
death, in 1958, his bank invented the credit ! card (BankAmericard, which became
Visa in 1975).
Of course, Bank of America has suffered some of its own seismic events in the
years since its founding. Acquisitions of banks without sufficient resources,
losses due to bad loans in Latin America, over-dependence on the petroleum
industry, and leadership changes all created shock waves that affected the
bank. However, despite the mergers, the bank represents a largely unbroken line
from the geologic event that dominated 1906.
The moral of this story is that everything is connected, and that geology has
driven the world economy in some unusual ways. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in
1860: “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good
learner would not miss. … What had been, ever since our memory, solid
continent, yawns apart, and discloses its composition and genesis.
We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of
cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of
the sea! .”
By New Year’s Eve 2006 and the conclusion of the
And of course several books about the 1906 earthquake are in preparation now,
including one by Simon Winchester, author of The Map That Changed the World:
William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology, published in 2001, and Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27,
1883, published in 2003 (see Geotimes,
October 2003). Scheduled for release in October 2005,
The establishment of Bank of America is just one of thousands of repercussions
of the 1906 event, and many of the results have been positive. One of these is
increased public interest in geology. As Emerson so accurately noted, "We
learn geology the morning (or century) after the earthquake, on ghastly
diagrams of cloven mountains, up-heaved plains, and the dry bed of the
sea"
The
ANNOTICO Reports are Archived at:
Italia
Mia: www.italiamia.com (Community)