Stephen Jerome Hannagan

Background

Stephen Jerome Hannagan was born on April 4, 1899 in Lafayette, Indiana, United States. He was the son of William John and Johanna Gertrude Enright Hannagan. His father made a modest living as a pattern maker.

Education

To supplement the family income Hannagan started to work for a local newspaper, the Lafayette Morning Journal, at the age of fourteen and continued while attending Jefferson High School (from which he graduated in 1917) and then Purdue University in Lafayette. In 1919, after two years of college, Hannagan went to Indianapolis.

Career

In Indianapolis Hannagan worked briefly for a newspaper, the Indianapolis Star, and for an advertising agency. He was then hired by Carl Fisher, the new owner of the Indianapolis Speedway, to publicize the Memorial Day 500-mile race. Hannagan succeeded in shifting attention from the cars as mechanical achievements to the drivers as sports heroes.

Following that success he returned to journalism as a reporter and features writer for United Press, Newspaper Enterprises Association, and United Features. In 1921 he flew around the continent with Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, writing about that adventure for popular magazines. Three years later he returned to publicity work when he was again hired by Carl Fisher, this time to promote tourism for Miami Beach. Aware that reporters needed copy, he acquired free publicity for Miami Beach and a personal reputation for honesty by supplying even bad news.

During the flamboyant era of the 1920s Hannagan ran his own agency. After 1924, he helped publicize boxer Gene Tunney as a reader of Shakespeare, and in 1931 he handled press relations for the speedboat racer Gar Wood.

After succeeding with his own agency, in 1933 Hannagan became a vice-president of Lord and Thomas, the advertising agency run by Albert Lasker. The next year he moved from puffery to more serious clients for Lord and Thomas when he worked on behalf of Samuel Insull, the utilities magnate who was returned from Europe to stand trial for fraud. To overcome public hostility Hannagan issued no press releases, but he did write the contrite statement that Insull read to the press when he arrived back in the United States. Otherwise, Hannagan tried to humanize Insull and to create the image of an aged martyr who was being persecuted unfairly. On Hannagan's advice Insull delayed posting bail and spent a short time in jail. When out on bail Insull lived modestly, went to neighborhood movies, and rode to court on a public bus. Insull's acquittal enhanced Hannagan's reputation among business leaders. Unhappy with taking orders at Lord and Thomas, Hannagan in 1935 again established his own firm.

During the late 1930s he acquired some of the largest corporations as clients; his greatest success came from the promotion of the Idaho ski resort developed by the Union Pacific Railroad. No sports enthusiast himself, Hannagan convinced board chairman William Averell Harriman to name the resort "Sun Valley" and to focus publicity on the advantages of winter sports in a summer climate. That theme was emphasized by cheesecake photographs and photographs of a bare-chested skier, actually taken in a New York studio on cotton snow. In December 1936 he brought to the resort a train of Hollywood celebrities to attract attention from the press.

In 1940 he was among the group of publicists recruited by the Luce editor Russell Davenport to work on behalf of Wendell Willkie. And four years later he also represented Thomas E. Dewey. Calling himself a "press agent, " rather than the more pretentious "public relations counselor, " by the 1940s Hannagan was operating within the glamorous entertainment circles of New York and Hollywood.

While his work for corporations during the 1940s was generally less conspicuous than in the past, during the war he did apply his skills to one controversial situation. He was hired by Edsel Ford to explain why the Willow Run plant failed to meet its quotas for bomber production. Characteristically, he did not try to make excuses but, instead, created the image of a domestic battle front with production a drama to attract sympathetic news coverage. Nevertheless, when Edsel Ford died, Henry Ford fired Hannagan. Hannagan died of a heart attack in Nairobi, Kenya. Ignoring the Mau Mau uprising, Hannagan, a master of the meretricious in American culture, was in Africa to provide advice on sales techniques to Coca-Cola dealers. Two years after his death his firm was bought by Hill and Knowlton, one of the largest public-relations agencies.

Achievements

• Stephen Jerome Hannagan went down in history as a prominent publicist and journalist. His own agency helped shape the public images of major tourist attractions, sports events, and sports heroes, and greatest success came from the promotion of the Idaho ski resort developed by the Union Pacific Railroad. Hannagan also developed a technique that became a hallmark of his work - the use, as an advertising device, of photographs of attractive young women in bathing suits.

Politics

Although a loyal Republican, Hannagan rarely applied his publicity skills to politics because he disliked the compromises necessary.

Personality

Associates and journalists described Hannagan as breezy, flamboyant, loud, belligerent, but likable. A big spender on entertainment and clothes, preferably monogrammed, he usually lived, when not married, in New York hotels.

Connections

In 1931 Hannagan married Ruth Ellery; they had no children, and divorced a few years later.

In November 1939 he married Suzanne Brewster, a New York clothes model; that marriage also ended in divorce four years later.

He was a friend of the Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley and, after his two divorces, was for several years a companion of the movie actress Ann Sheridan.

Father:

William John Hannagan

Mother:

Johanna Gertrude (Enright) Hannagan

Spouse:

Ruth Ellery

Spouse:

Suzanne Brewster

References

• Who Was Who in America: A Companion Biographical Reference Work to Whos Who in America Volume 3 1951-1960