Bannan, Benjamin (sold)

Benjamin Bannan (April 22, 1807 - July 29, 1875) was a publisher, journalist, and political economist based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century. Bannan was born in Union City, Pennsylvania, into a Pennsylvania farming family. His father died when he was eight years old, forcing him to quit school to run the family farm. Nonetheless, Bannan taught himself to read and, inspired by the local newspaper (Village Record), wanted to become a publisher. At 15, he took a job at the Berks and Schuylkill Journal, where he learned the printing and publishing business. He rose through the ranks to become a partner. In 1829, Bannan moved to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the epicenter of Pennsylvania's thriving coal mining industry. There, he founded the Miners' Journal, which he published for more than 40 years. Politically, Bannan was a Whig and a Republican, espousing nativist 'free labor' ideologies, believing that social mobility was an inherent aspect of economic expansion. His ideal society had an independent middle class made up of small entrepreneurial businesses - like coal mining industrialists. He was anti-immigration and, in 1857, mentioned the Molly Maguires in Miners' Journal, linking the secretive group to local terrorism. It is among the first known public references to the Molly Maguires. Along with Samuel Harries Daddow (1827 - 1875), he published Coal, Iron, and Oil, one of the most expensive single-volume works published in the United States at the time. He retired around 1873 and spent his retirement gardening. He died two years later.