My family object is a stock certificate that shows my Great Grandfather, George Marino, selling stock in the Sunray Oil Company, which would later become the modern day Sunoco. A share of stock is a very American idea, a symbol of capitalism ideal, and my Italian Great Grandfather’s share represented that he was truly becoming a New Yorker. New York City is home to the world’s capital of finance and the top two largest global stock markets. From 1907 to 1930 these very markets were the scenes of booms and busts that changed the history of America. This little certificate is a part of that history.
In 1907 my Great-Great Grandfather came to New York City from Bari Italy. Two years later my Great Grandfather was born. Italians found assimilation a necessity for survival in their new world, and for that reason the Italian language was lost quickly in many families, as were Italian names like Leonardo. But Italians’ struggle to fit in with the New York community paid off and eventually they were true New Yorkers who invested, raised families, and fought for their country.
As much as my Great Grandfather had learned to love his new country, he had also learned to fight for it. This Stock shows my Great grandfather sold his shares in Sunray Oil, as well as AT&T and IBM (not shown here) in order to make sure that his wife and kids had enough money while he went off to to fight in WW2 in 1944. George’s share represent the assimilation, the fear of poverty and the dream of investment, as well as the morals of a responsible family man as he chose to fight for freedom and his family’s safety. As soon as I saw this stock certificate I realized that all those stories I heard of my moral, Italian Great Grandfather, who dreamed large and sacrificed big, were real.
There is a quiet but significant story of my family’s struggle and survival in New York City in this one piece of paper. This certificate shows not only the story of my Great Grandfather, a moral man who put his family in front of his fortunes, but also the story of a city of immigrants and migrants, who lived through bust after boom and then World War II fighting for the world they dreamed they could live in when first coming to America.
