Jasmine (family)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Jasmine family is an American family notable for its entrepreneurial endeavors in the U.S. Northeast. The family garnered modest prominence through its business as the major distributor of fresh produce in Reconstruction era New York City. Until the 1920s, the Jasmine food goods trade became an early innovator in using the railroads to carry produce, preserved foods, and wine from California to markets and vendors in the New York tri-state area. Most early Jasmine family interests were sold and incorporated into the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in 1921, allowing that company to vastly expand its holdings and stores in the New York metropolitan area. Since the 1920s, the Jasmine family has been involved in philanthropy and support for Catholic schools and education.
[edit] History
The Jasmines were relatively late-comers to the early United States. They sprang from a long line of Guelphist artisans and composers of music in Savoy Genoa. The House of Grimaldi was nearby, and the brocade-coated Grimaldi nobles may often have requisitioned pieces at the family household near the Church of San Girolamo Del Rosso.
The progenitor of the Jasmines in the United States was Gaetano Oneto De' Giasemigne, orphaned by his middle-class parents and trained as a carpenter by the Jesuits. The Jesuits also gave him the appellation De' Giasemigne with the meaning "By the Jasmine Blooms," the location of his workshop, from which the family took its anglicized name. He immigrated in 1861 due to predatory business syndicates brought into Genoa upon the city's annexation by Italy.
Upon arrival in America, Jasmine stayed briefly in Harford County at the insistance of Henry Tighlman Paca, a descendant of William Paca, before setting out for San Francisco where he began to organize his food trade. After the war, he became a citizen and settled in New York.
[edit] The Twentieth Century
In recent decades, the family has declined in prominence as it has become widely scattered and disunited in the Northeastern United States and throughout the country.
Norman W. Schwebius, a member of the Jasmine family, owned and operated the last Bridgeport, Connecticut carriage shop and fittings factory for vehicles intended as an industry alternative to the automobile until 1935.
