Steve Hannigan (1900-1953) is the man who invented techniques that are used by public relations and marketing experts to this day. Learn about Hannagan’s long and successful career from John W. Lundin, lawyer, historian and author of Skiing Sun Valley: A History From Union Pacific To The Holdings. In 1947, Collier’s magazine said Hannagan was the “Prince of Press Agents." 

Hannagan made the Indianapolis 500 race a nationally loved event, and changed Miami Beach from a mosquito infested swamp into a winter wonderland,“Where Summer Spends the Winter,” using pictures of bathing beauties and other creative techniques. He virtually planned the Sun Valley Resort for Averell Harriman and Union Pacific Railroad in 1936, dictating the amenities that had to be offered to make skiers from all over the country ride the train to the remote mountains of Idaho. Hannagan, who loved hanging out in Miami Beach and hated the cold and snow, choose the resort’s name to emphasize sun and warmth. Hannagan’s advertising techniques created “America’s St. Moritz” that offered “Winter Sports Under a Summer Sun,” exemplified by his famous ad featuring a shirtless skier. His innovative techniques brought to the new resort “beautiful people, movie stars and moguls, captains of industry…and playboys and playgirls of the international social set… [who] flocked to this wintery Shangri-la,” according to Freidl Pfeifer. He orchestrated the 10-page article about Sun Valley in Look Magazine in March 1937, that gave the resort millions of dollars of free publicity and made  it an immediate cultural icon. Hannagan later made Coca Cola a national symbol of pleasure, connecting it to the good life and convincing the public that “a dark, gooey, sugar-laced syrup, would add zest to their lives.” 

This program will be livestreamed and available to view later. Click here to watch online.

John W. Lundin is a lawyer, historian and author, a founding member of the Washington State Ski and Snowboard Museum, Vice President of the North American Snowsports Journalists’ Assoc. (NASJA), and splits his time between Seattle and Sun Valley.  He is the author of numerous magazine and journal articles and four award winning books: Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass (2017); Sun Valley, Ketchum and the Wood River Valley (2020); Skiing Sun Valley: a History from Union Pacific to the Holdings (2020); and Ski Jumping in Washington State: a Nordic Tradition. In 2021, Skiing Sun Valley won NASJA’s Harold S. Hirsch Award for Excellence in Snowsports Journalism, a Skade award from the International Ski Heritage Assoc., and the Western Ski Heritage award from the Far West Ski Association.  In 2023, John won a second Western Ski Heritage award for his multi-year work to preserve “Ski Jumping History, Expressing Norwegian Identity, and its Role in the Development of Skiing in America.” John helped organize two exhibits on ski jumping:  “Sublime Sights: Ski Jumping in Nordic America”at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle in 2021; and “Skiers in Flight: Sun Valley’s Ski Jumping Roots” at The Community Library's Regional History Museum (now the Wood River Museum of History and Culture) in Ketchum in 2022. John writes a regular history column for Eye on Sun Valley, has made a series of TV shows with them, and helped make a TV show for the Idaho Experience series on Idaho Public TV, “Tracks of Time: The History of Idaho’s Railroads.”