HANNA, MARCUS ALONZO

Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1837–1904), was a wealthy businessman from Ohio and a leading spokesman for enlightened capitalism (the cooperation of business, labor, and government to help improve economic and social conditions.) He appreciated the importance of the relationship between business and politics and lent his organizational skills to the campaigns of Ohio Republicans. He is best known for managing successfully the presidential campaign of William McKinley (1897–1901), and later serving as United States Senator.

Marcus Hanna was born in New Lisbon (now Lisbon), Ohio in 1837. He moved with his family to Cleveland, where his father ran a wholesale grocery business. Hanna became a partner in this business after his father's death in 1862. In 1864 he married the daughter of Daniel P. Rhodes, a coal and iron magnate. Hanna joined his father-in-law's company and had such success in business dealings that the company reorganized as M. A. Hanna and Company in 1885. He also supported other business interests in Cleveland, such as a bank, a newspaper, the Opera House, lake transportation, oil refining, and the street railway system.

Hanna's ideal of capitalism included the support of large-scale production, tariff protection, and the gold standard. He was an unusual capitalist in that he did not oppose labor organizations. He saw it as a necessary means to settle industrial disputes in a quick and efficient manner. More importantly, Hanna appreciated the inevitable link between business and politics. He assumed that the Republican party would be a valuable ally for his business endeavors and became actively involved in the campaign of the Ohio Republicans who sought the presidency between 1880 and 1890: James A. Garfield (1881), John Sherman, and William McKinley. Hanna applied his business skills, such as corporate assessment and merchandising techniques, to the campaign process.

As the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Hanna successfully organized the campaign to elect William McKinley as president in 1896, and remained one of McKinley's closest advisors during his presidency. In 1897 he was appointed U.S. Senator from Ohio to replace John Sherman, who became McKinley's Secretary of State. Hanna then won full-term Senate elections in 1898 and 1903. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Hanna served as an advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09), though he disagreed with many of Roosevelt's policies.

A successful businessman and U.S. Senator, Hanna died in 1904.

See also: Gold Standard, Theodore Roosevelt

FURTHER READING

Beer, Thomas. Hanna. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1929.

Croly, Herbert David. Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1965.

Garraty, John A., and Jerome L. Sterstein, eds. Encyclopedia of American Biography, 2nd edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1996, s.v. "Hanna, Marcus Alonzo."

O'Brien, Steven G. American Political Leaders from Colonial Times to the Present. Santa Barbara: ABCCLIO, Inc., 1991.

Stern, Clarence Ames. Resurgent Republicanism: The Handiwork of Hanna. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1963.