Teodoro Moscoso and Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap by Alex W. Maldonado tells us about the life of Teodoro Moscoso, the architect of the “economic miracle” which most experts did not believe could happen in Puerto Rico. Teodoro Moscoso was born in Barcelona on November 26, 1910. His mother, named Alejandrina Mora Fajardo, was a Spaniard from the Balearic island of Majorca. His father, also named Teodoro, was a pharmacist. He wanted to have a son that could help him accomplish, a branch of pharmacies through Puerto Rico. Moscoso attended school in New York and became a good English speaker. He graduated from Ponce High School; soon after this, he was attending the Philadelphia School of Pharmacy. After studying there for 3 years he insisted to his father, to transfer him to the University of Michigan. He wanted to go there because it offered liberal arts courses which he wanted to study. After graduation in 1932 Moscoso returned to Ponce to work at his father’s pharmacy. He married Gloria Snchez Vilella, sister of future Puerto Rico governor Roberto Snchez Vilella (1965-1969). Pharmacy work bored Moscoso, and in the mid 1930’s when the Ponce Housing Authority (PHA) was about to lose a two million dollar grant, Pedro Juan Rosaly, a PHA board member approached Moscoso’s father and asked if his son could help. Moscoso’s command of the English language was what drew the interest of PHA officials. Moscoso saved the grant and from 1937 to 1941 he build nearly one thousand housing units, clearing many Ponce slums in the process. It was Moscoso’s work at PHA which captured the interest of the newly appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Rexford G. Tugwell. Tugwell was a member President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brain trust, a group of well educated, committed Americans who went to Washington during the Great Depression to try to lift the nation out of the economic crisis. After a...
