Milton Hershey

Candymaker and Philanthropist

• Born: September 13, 1857
• Birthplace: Derry Township, Pennsylvania
• Died: October 13, 1945
• Place of death: Hershey, Pennsylvania

Significance: After several business failures, Milton Hershey started a candy business that would become a Fortune 500 company. By the time of his death, Hershey had also established a town around his factory, opened a theme park, built a zoo, created a school for orphaned boys, and donated generously to churches and educational and cultural charities.

Background

On September 13, 1857, Milton Snavely Hershey was born on a farm near Derry Township, a rural Pennsylvania community. Hershey was the only surviving child of Henry and Veronica, known to all as “Fanny.” Henry, a dreamer who could not hold down a steady job, left his family when Hershey was a young man. Fanny, who had come from a prosperous Mennonite family, raised her son with a solid work ethic, inspiring him to quit school at age fourteen to begin working.

Hershey’s first job was an apprenticeship at a small, German-language newspaper located in Gap, Pennsylvania. Hershey did not enjoy the work, and his mother soon found him a new position as an apprentice to a master confectioner in nearby Lancaster. In 1876, after four years spent learning the basics of candy making, Hershey moved to Philadelphia to open his own confectionery business. Although subsidized by his mother’s family, Hershey could never generate adequate cash flow and declared bankruptcy in 1882.

In the months following his first failed business, Hershey moved to Denver, Colorado, where his father lived. Hershey secured a position with another candymaker and learned the art of making caramels from fresh milk. Leaving Colorado, Hershey sought new opportunities in New Orleans and Chicago. When he did not find success, Hershey moved to New York City in 1883 and started another candy business, enjoying little success before it, too, failed.

Building an Empire Out of Chocolate

Hershey returned home to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in late 1883 to start the Lancaster Caramel Company. This time, his candy business was a success, and before long, he was shipping his sweet treats nationwide. Ten years later, while attending the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Hershey became hooked on chocolate-making. He bought the German-made machinery displayed at the exposition for his own company and started a side business. The chocolate factory was so successful he sold the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1900 for $1 million. Hershey then relocated his business to Derry Township, where he had access to the milk that he needed to make the chocolate that had, up to that point, been the domain of the Swiss.

Hershey’s massive candy-making facility opened in 1905. The Hershey Chocolate Company soon became the hub of a bustling town. Hershey added comfortable homes for his employees, public transportation, schools, shops, and recreational facilities. In 1906, Hershey opened an amusement park that drew thousands of tourists to the area. In 1909, Hershey and his wife, Catherine, established the Milton Hershey School for orphaned boys.

Throughout his life, Milton Hershey loved to travel. In 1912, he booked passage on a new luxury cruise liner, but a last-minute business emergency caused him to delay his plans. The ship was the Titanic, and its maiden voyage was unexpectedly cut short, killing some 1,500 passengers when the vessel hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland. Having narrowly avoided what could have been a disastrous end to his life, Hershey expanded his empire to Cuba in 1916. Intent on saving money on Cuban sugar for his American chocolate business, Hershey built a massive sugar mill in a small town thirty miles east of Havana. Replicating what had become known as Hershey, Pennsylvania, the candy baron built a model town around his newest factory.

Relatively untouched by the Great Depression (1929–1933), Hershey started a construction boom to keep his Pennsylvania townspeople in business. He employed more than six hundred workers to build a hotel, community theatre, a sports arena, and a junior-senior high school, among other projects. Hershey, Pennsylvania, had been transformed from farm country to a major tourist attraction.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Hershey’s business flourished. The shelf-stable chocolate bars were included as part of soldiers’ rations, leading to an astronomical $80 million in sales by 1944. When Milton Hershey died of natural causes in 1945, it was discovered that he had placed all of his shares of the company into a trust for the school he and his wife had earlier established. In 2015, journalists revealed that only a fraction of the money had benefited the students, as board members angled to sell majority voting shares to candy-making competitor Wrigley Company.

In 1959, Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalized the town of Hershey, Cuba, including its businesses, power plants, and railway. The sugar once used in the Hershey milk chocolate recipe was shipped to Russia, and the sugar mill and the town that housed it were renamed after one of Castro’s top commanders. The mill closed permanently in 2003, and the town was left to decay.

Impact

After pioneering the process of manufacturing affordable milk chocolate, once a Swiss luxury, Milton Hershey devoted himself to improving the lives of those who lived and worked in his towns. By 2023, the Hershey Chocolate Company employed more than 21,000 people, most of whom lived in the idyllic community Hershey had built around his iconic factory. The recreational facilities, including Hershey Park, drew approximately 8,000 additional seasonal workers. In 2022, the Milton Hershey School, one of the wealthiest in the US, offered boarding-school education to 2,000 girls and boys from kindergarten through twelfth grade. In 1963, 20 percent of the school’s endowment was used to build the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in the town that bore his name.

Personal Life

Milton Hershey married Catherine Sweeney, known to all as “Kitty,” in 1898. Together they built their home, High Point, overlooking the chocolate factory in what became known as Hershey, Pennsylvania. The couple had no children of their own, and Catherine died in 1915. The author of a controversial biography of Hershey, published in 2006, claimed that Hershey had two unacknowledged children outside of his marriage and that his wife died of syphilis.

Bibliography

Adams, Susan. “Sugar Daddy.” Forbes, 9 Jan. 2006, www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0109/141.html?sh=76ae7eee6e10. Accessed 28 May 2021.

Biography.com Editors. “Milton Hershey.” Biography, 10 Oct. 2019, www.biography.com/business-figure/milton-hershey. Accessed 28 May 2021.

D’Antonio, Michael. “Hershey’s Legend, without the Sugarcoating.” Los Angeles Times, 10 Jan. 2006, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-10-oe-dantonio10-story.html. Accessed 28 May 2021.

“Facts - About Us - Milton Hershey School.” Milton Hershey School, 2022, www.mhskids.org/about/mhs-fast-facts/. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023.

Fernandez, Bob. “The Chocolate Trust: Deception, Indenture and Secrets at the $12 Billion Milton Hershey School.” Philanthropy News Digest, 5 June 2015, philanthropynewsdigest.org/off-the-shelf/the-chocolate-trust. Accessed 28 May 2021.

“Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).” The Hershey Company, 2023, www.thehersheycompany.com/en‗us/home/faqs.html. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023.

Kelly, Debra. “The Untold Truth of Hershey.” Mashed, 11 Jan. 2021, www.mashed.com/112889/untold-truth-hershey/. Accessed 28 May 2021.

Miroff, Nick. “The Cuban Town Mr. Hershey Built.” The Washington Post, 5 May 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/world/the‗americas/in-cubas-hershey-where-an-american-experiment-ended-bitterly-hopes-stir/2015/05/05/87d40942-e84d-11e4-8581-633c536add4b‗story.html. Accessed 28 May 2021.

Wooster, Martin Morse. “Milton Hershey.” The Philanthropy Roundtable, 2021, www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/people/hall-of-fame/detail/milton-hershey. Accessed 28 May 2021.