Almerindo Portfolio

Almerindo Portfolio
Born 1877
Schiavi di Abruzzo, Italy
Died 1966
Gabriels, New York, USA
Nationality Italian American
Occupation Businessman, New York City Treasurer

Almerindo Portfolio (1877–1966), was treasurer of New York City under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.[1] An immigrant from Italy in 1888. [2] In 1908 he legally changed his name from Almerindo Porfilio.[3]

Portfolio rose from a $2-a-week messenger to the presidency of the Bank of Sicily and the head of a cloak & suit concern, which in 1924 he gave to six employees.[4] He also worked as a newspaper publisher, commodity trader, and investment banker.

Between 1917 and 1919 he paid 300,000 Lira ($1.5 million in 2006 US dollars[5]) to install the first electric service in his home town of Schiavi di Abruzzo, Italy. He later gave 50,000 Lira ($255,000 in 2006 US dollars[6]) for the town's water utilities.[7]

In 1940 Portfolio was a delegate to the Republican National Convention.[8] In 1945 he was a member of a joint committee of influential Italian Americans promoting Allied status for Italy in World War II.[9]

Portfolio died on January 25, 1966 at the age of 88, in Gabriels, in upstate New York, at a tuberculosis cure facility.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b Almerindo Portfolio, 88, Dead; City Treasurer for La Guardia; Immigrant Built Fortune, Then Gave Business to Workers Headed Bank, www.nytimes.com, January 25, 1966
  2. ^ Porfilio Surname : Italian Immigration to America, www.lookupthe.name, on the ship SS Letimbro
  3. ^ Laws of the State of New York, Volume 2, By New York (State), 1909, Google Books
  4. ^ Radio: Cause, Jul. 10, 1939, www.time.com
  5. ^ Assuming that 300,000 lira in 1918 was equivalent to $47,600, based on a 6.3 lira per dollar exchange rate as reported by The Crisis of Liberal Italy By Douglas J. Forsyth, page 205, at a time when the average family annual income was $1,518 as reported by Economic and demographic indicators, United States, 1918–19, so the sum was 41 times average family annual income, and given that 2006 median family income was $48,800.
  6. ^ Ibid, 5.2 times average family annual income.
  7. ^ Schiavi di Abruzzo, Documenti e Storia, edited by L. Porfilio and P. Falasca, Marino Saolfanelli Publishers, 1994, ISBN 88-7497-621-6., Page 232.
  8. ^ New York Delegation to the 1940 Republican National Convention, www.politicalgraveyard.com
  9. ^ ITALIAN-AMERICANS ORGANIZE TO DEMAND ALLIED STATUS FOR ITALY, CIA Document, www.faqs.org, 4/6/1945

Links

List of Italian Americans

Reflections by Pasqualino Falasca, with permission of author, in Italian.