M. A. Hanna Company was an

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

processing company located in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, United States.

Origin

The origin of the M. A. Hanna Co. is the Rhodes & Company, founded in the 1840s by Daniel F. Rhodes to mine

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

in the

Mahoning Valley The Youngstown–Warren, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area, typically known as the Mahoning Valley, is a metropolitan area in Northeast Ohio with Youngstown, Ohio, at its center. According to the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau, ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

Mark Hanna Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837 – February 15, 1904) was an American businessman and Republican politician who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. A friend and ...

, a Republican political figure in Ohio, married into the Rhodes family in 1864. After the Civil War Hanna invested in a Great Lakes steamer and built a petroleum refinery (he was a high-school classmate of

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

, who remained a friend). By 1867, the ship had sunk, and the refinery had burned down without insurance, but his father-in-law recognized Hanna's potential and took him into Rhodes & Company as a partner before he retired. Under Hanna, the company expanded into other fields including

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

in the area around

Lake Superior Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. Lake Michigan–Huron has a larger combined surface area than Superior, but is normally considered tw ...

. It became Hanna Mining in 1885. Incorporation took place in 1922 and was named as the M.A. Hanna Company. In 1929 the Hanna Company transferred its

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure. In a ...

coke oven Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content. It is made by heating coal or petroleum in the absence of air. Coke is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ore smelting, but also as a fuel in stove ...

s, and other assets for stock of the

National Steel Corporation The National Steel Corporation (1929–2003) was a major American steel producer. It was founded on October 1, 1929 through a merger arranged by Weirton Steel with the new Great Lakes Steel Corporation, which was then in the process of construc ...

. Hanna's

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...

properties were exchanged for stock of the newly formed

Consolidation Coal Company Consolidation may refer to: In science and technology * Consolidation (computing), the act of linkage editing in computing * Consolidation (locomotive), popular name of a steam locomotive with a 2-8-0 wheel arrangement * Consolidation (soil), a ...

in 1945.

1950s

In the early 1950s the company began diversification under George Humphrey producing high-grade iron ore pellets and establishing

Iron Ore Company of Canada Iron Ore Company of Canada (often abbreviated to IOC) () is a Canadian-based producer of iron ore. The company was founded in 1949 from a partnership of Canadian and American firms, the largest being the M.A. Hanna Company. It is now owned by a c ...

. Hanna also acquired interests in mineral companies in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

as well as beginning the mining of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

and

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

. In 1958 Hanna's

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

, the Hanna Coal & Ore Company, became the independent Hanna Mining Company while M. A. Hanna continued with

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

sales and in its investment firm work until

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a Company (law), company is brought to an end. The assets and property of the business are redistributed. When a firm has been liquidated, it is sometimes referred to as :wikt:wind up#Noun, w ...

in 1965.

1970s

By the early 1970s, Hanna Mining was the world's second-largest producer of iron ore with

United States Steel The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, ...

being the largest. They financed cops in Brasil for obtaining that. Also during this decade, Hanna secured interests in

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

, low sulfur coal, and mineral exploration. Hanna executives believed that the name Hanna Mining did not reflect the entire scope of what the company embodied and the name returned to M. A. Hanna Company in March 1985. On October 6, 1978, Hanna Mining Company sold the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad to John C. Larkin, a businessman from Minneapolis who had organized a passenger excursion on the railroad earlier in the decade. During the 1980s under

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Martin D. Walker, M. A. Hanna began acquiring

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

and

polymer A polymer () is a chemical substance, substance or material that consists of very large molecules, or macromolecules, that are constituted by many repeat unit, repeating subunits derived from one or more species of monomers. Due to their br ...

companies while

divest In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is a ...

ing itself of mining and energy property. Hanna purchased Burton Rubber Processing Company in 1986 and other polymer industries totaling sales of $1.1 billion in 1990. By 1993, M. A. Hanna's revenue from polymer processing was 99% of all revenue. By 1998, annual sales reached $2.3 billion (~$ in ) annually. Hanna merged with

polyvinyl chloride Polyvinyl chloride (alternatively: poly(vinyl chloride), colloquial: vinyl or polyvinyl; abbreviated: PVC) is the world's third-most widely produced synthetic polymer of plastic (after polyethylene and polypropylene). About 40 million tons of ...

giant Geon Company, a former division of the B. F. Goodrich Company that became a separate entity in 1993. The merger produced PolyOne Corporation, a company worth $3.5 billion and ranked in the

Fortune 1000 {{location map+ , United States , float=right , width=400, relief=1 , caption=''Fortune'' 1000 company headquarters locations. Top 20 companies labeled, places= {{location map~ , United States , lat= 36.365378 , long= -94.217629 , label= Walmart, ...

.Case Western Reserve, Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: M. A. Hanna
/ref>

References

*F.S. Smithers & Co. The Iron Ore Industry and the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co., the Hanna Mining Co., the M. A. Hanna Co. (1960).

External links

PolyOne Corporation
{{Authority control Companies based in Cleveland Defunct mining companies of the United States