Career
He sold his land in 1882 and moved to Page where he began his career as a businessman. He started a retail lumber company, then expanded into grain handling. Soon he needed banking facilities, so he opened a private bank at Page. The bank became a state bank, then became the First National Bank of Page, with Hanna as the president.
From 1895 to 1897, Hanna served in the North Dakota House of Representatives. Hanna moved to Fargo in 1899, serving as vice president of the First National Bank of Fargo. Hanna took on the North Dakota Senate from 1897 to 1901, and again from 1905 to 1909, representing the Fargo district this time.
In 1908, Louis Hanna was elected to represent North Dakota in the United States House of Representatives where he served two terms, from 1909 to 1913. Without any lapse between positions, he became the eleventh Governor of North Dakota in 1913. The four years in Bismarck as Governor of North Dakota were largely spent attacking the $300,000 debt inherited by Hanna upon assuming office. At the end of four years, the entire amount was paid off; in addition, the bonded debt of nearly one million dollars was reduced to $462,000. A teacher's retirement and insurance fund was created and an inheritance tax law was sanctioned.
During Hanna's term the governor, his family, and a committee went to Norway. On July 4, 1914 at Christiania (Oslo), they presented the people of Norway with a statue of Abraham Lincoln. The statue, by North Dakota sculptor Paul Fjelde, is located in Frogner Park in Oslo.
Read more about this topic: L. B. Hanna
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)