Daniel Webster Hoan, Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee from 1916–1940, was born on 12
March 1881 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was the son of Daniel Webster Hoan and
Margaret Augusta Hood. After his parents divorced in 1888, Hoan lived with his
father. Several years after the death of his father in 1895, Hoan quit school and
supported himself by working as a cook and farm laborer. He resumed his schooling in
1901 and graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a bachelor’s degree in
1905. Hoan studied law at Kent College of Law in Chicago for several years after
receiving his bachelor’s degree. He passed the bar exam in 1907 and moved to
Milwaukee the following year. A notable accomplishment during his early years as an
attorney in Wisconsin, he worked drafting a bill that would become the first state
workmen’s compensation law in the nation.
He was elected City Attorney for Milwaukee in 1910 and was reelected in 1914. Hoan
married Agnes Bernice Magner (1883-1941) in 1909. They had two children, Agnes
Bernice and Daniel Webster III. Hoan was elected mayor of Milwaukee in 1916 and
continued to serve as mayor until 1940 when he was defeated by a political novice,
Carl F. Zeidler, a Milwaukee assistant city attorney. Hoan’s tenure as mayor was
notable for its longevity and its quality of governance. His commitment to a clean
and efficient government, his fiscally sound economic policies and progressive
social policies earned him a national reputation. In 1944, Hoan joined the
Democratic Party and began a series of unsuccessful political campaigns for office.
He ran for governor in 1944 and 1946, the U.S. House of Representatives in 1948,
U.S. Senate in 1950, and state senate in 1952. Hoan was active in promoting
Milwaukee’s harbor development and in improving the St. Lawrence Seaway. He married
Gladys Arthur Townsend (1901-1952) of Muncie, Indiana, in 1944. Hoan died 11 June
1961.
