A.P. Giannini and the Bank of America

by Gerald D. Nash

This fast-paced biography of Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini affords an intriguing glimpse into the life of one of the world's most creative bankers. In 1904, after a successful career in wholesale produce and real estate in San Francisco's North End, Giannini began building the tiny Bank of Italy into the Bank of America, one of the world's largest financial institutions at the time of his death in 1949. A. P. Giannini's career was central to the development of the early-twentieth-century West. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he was the only banker with funds on hand to finance the rebuilding of the city - because he personally had rescued the contents of his bank vault before the fire reached downtown. When World War I created new markets for California's farmers, shipbuilders, and small manufacturers, Giannini expanded branch banking throughout the state to meet their financial needs.^ Between the wars he continued to expand throughout the United States and oversea