- A.P. Giannini
Critical Essay by
Cristina M. Giannantonio, Ph.D.
Professor of Management
Argyros College of Business and Management
View Bio
"There is no fun in working merely for money. I like to do things, to be a builder." A.P Giannini
Amadeo Peter (A.P.) Giannini, a banker who spent his career surrounded by money, never wanted to be a millionaire. He believed that people should make their own way in the world and that California was the key to prosperity for all. A visionary leader, he founded the Bank of Italy in 1904. This single branch would become Bank of America. With over $2.5 trillion in assets and over 3,800 branches, it is the second-largest bank in the United States. An American businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Giannini’s belief that banks should serve their community and the “little fellows” profoundly changed the banking industry, California’s economy, and the lives of numerous immigrants in search of the American Dream.
A.P. Giannini (1870-1949) was born in San Jose, California, to Luigi and Maria Virginia De Martini. His Italian immigrant parents and his stepfather, Lorenzo Scatena, taught him the value of hard work. At an early age, he left school to work in his stepfather’s produce business, L. Scatena & Co. He worked as a produce broker for farms in the Santa Clara Valley until he retired at 31.
Giannini married Clorinda Agnes Cuneo in 1892. He served as a director in his father-in-law’s savings and loan bank. At that time, banks were the purview of the wealthy. A.P. saw a great opportunity in providing banking services to the increasing number of working-class immigrants settling in California. In 1904, he opened the Bank of Italy to provide loans to the predominantly Italian immigrants that the larger banks refused to serve. Believing that banks should serve their communities, he made it a point to treat his working-class customers with respect and dignity. The services offered by the Bank of Italy, while standard practice today, were novel in Giannini’s time. Aware that immigrants had little experience keeping their money in banks, often spoke limited English, and worked long hours as laborers, Giannini’s bank taught customers how to fill out deposit slips, hired employees who spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, and extended its hours into the evening and on Saturdays.
Building and rebuilding were central themes in Giannini’s life. After the 1906 earthquake struck San Francisco, fires closed the city’s banks. Giannini and his brother, Dr. Attilio Giannini, hid the bank’s assets in wagons carrying crates of oranges. They wheeled the gold through the streets to his home outside the city. With his bank closed, Giannini set up banking on the wharf, making loans on a handshake to immigrants looking to rebuild their family homes and small businesses. He believed that the calloused hands of the hard-working laborers were a guarantee that the loan would be repaid.
As his bank became successful, Giannini opened branch banks in nearby cities and throughout the state. Giannini believed that Southern California, particularly Los Angeles, offered multiple opportunities for success. He loaned money to an animator who wanted to make a full-length cartoon film called Little Snow White. A.P. would loan Walt Disney the money to produce Dumbo, Fantasia, and Pinocchio. Convinced that the film industry would flourish, he provided loans to launch Columbia Pictures and help establish Hollywood’s motion picture industry. During the Depression, Giannini also influenced California’s economy by investing bank money in bonds to build the Golden Gate Bridge and providing loans to farmers for crops and equipment.
Giannini was a proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion long before these terms became core business values. He sought individuals who were ignored by other banks. In 1930, the Bank of Italy was renamed Bank of America to reflect the bank’s diverse customer base and to appeal to all Americans. In addition to Italian American immigrants, the bank’s customers would grow to include numerous ethnic minorities, women, soldiers, the interned, and veterans. In 1921, Giannini established the Women’s Bank, the only bank in the nation run entirely by women, to promote women's economic independence. Female staff offered evening classes to help their customers learn how to bank by saving, borrowing, and investing their money wisely. His School Savings Program taught children the importance of saving, allowing them to open accounts with just one penny.
During World War II, Giannini opened temporary branches near military bases to serve the thousands of soldiers deployed from California to fight the war in the Pacific. Each month, A.P.’s “installations” provided tens of millions of dollars for salaries and cashed several hundred thousand checks for military personnel. At the request of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Giannini provided banking services to Japanese American citizens interned at Tule Lake and Manzanar relocation camps in California. WWII brought two million people to California to work at jobs in war-related industries in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, leading to an increase in demand for banking services and the potential to serve new personal and business customers. Once the war ended, Bank of America loaned over half a billion dollars to returning veterans and processed tens of thousands of home loans under the G.I. Bill. Overseas, Bank of America lent money for the reconstruction of Italy.
Giannini was a generous philanthropist. On his 75th birthday, he endowed the A.P. Giannini Foundation to provide educational scholarships to bank employees and to support innovative research in healthcare and medical knowledge. He was passionate about preventing and curing human disease as several of six children died young from hemophilia. The Giannini Foundation has provided funding to over 900 postdoctoral biomedical researchers at California medical schools. Giannini also donated generously to the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology. The Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics was established in his honor to support research in agricultural economics and rural development in California.
An American businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Giannini’s beliefs about the role banks should play in their communities changed the banking industry. His conviction about California’s potential influenced the growth of several industries that fuel the state’s economy. His confidence in the “little fellows” becoming prosperous opened the door to the American Dream for countless immigrants, the underserved, and the underestimated.
References
Alef, D. (2009). Amadeo P. Giannini The Reluctant Millionaire. / Daniel Alef. Titans of Fortune Publishing. Kindle Edition.
Bonadio, F. A. (1994). A.P. Giannini : banker of America / Felice A. Bonadio. University of California Press.
Cattani, D.H. (2009). A.P. Giannini The Man with the Midas Touch / Dana Haight Cattani and Angela B. Haight. AuthorHouse.
Schweikart, L. (2010). American entrepreneur : the fascinating stories of the people who defined business in the United States / Larry Schweikart, Lynne Pierson Doti. American Management Association.
Valente, F. (2017). A.P. Giannini : the people’s banker / Francesca Valente. Barbera Foundation, Inc.
https://www.occ.treas.gov/about/who-we-are/history/1866-1913/1866-1913-bank-of-america.html
https://www.pbs.org/video/italian-americans-ashes/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/giannini_hi.html
