milton hershey

1. Milton Snavely Hershey
Milton Snavely Hershey was born on a central Pennsylvania farm in
Derry Township, on September 13, 1857, to Henry H. Hershey and Fannie
B. Snavely. Hershey inherited the entrepreneurial spirit from his father
who moved the family often, attempting a variety of business ventures,
including farming and cough drop manufacturing. Because of all the
moves, Hershey's early schooling was haphazard, ending after the fourth
grade.
His apprenticeship with Joseph H. Royer, a confectioner in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania from 1872 to 1876, Hershey helped Royer with his
candy-making business and ice cream parlour, learning skills that would
later help him build his own candy empire.
Tried and Tried Again
At the age of 19, Hershey parted company with Royer and started his
own candy business in Philadelphia. He hoped to find an eager buying
public in the thousands of people visiting the city for the Great Centennial
Exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence. With money he borrowed from his uncle and the help of
his mother and aunt, Hershey began making taffy and caramels, which
were sold from a pushcart. The business scraped by for six years. In 1882,
Hershey collapsed from the strain of working all day (selling the candy)
and all night (manufacturing it). Forced to admit failure, Hershey closed
up shop.

2. Hershey decided to seek his fortune in Denver, Colorado, along with his
father, who had also moved west. He worked for a candy company in
Denver, where he learned how to improve the quality of his chocolate by
adding fresh milk. With his father, he moved to Chicago, and opened yet
another candy business. Like the others, it also failed.
Moving to New York City in the spring of 1883, Hershey worked for
a candy business called Huyler and Company, and started manufacturing
Hershey's Fine Candies. Unfortunately, sugar prices increased and
Hershey lost his candy-making machinery. In 1885, he returned to
Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
After so many failures, his aunt and uncle refused to loan Hershey
any more money. He became partners with William Henry Lebkicher, a
man he had hired in Philadelphia. The two men scraped together enough
money to start the Lancaster Caramel Company, where Hershey devised a
formula using fresh milk to make "Hershey's Crystal A" caramels. Finally,
he found success. An English importer ordered $2,500 worth of caramels
to ship to England. The proceeds allowed Hershey to expand his business.
Borrowing $250,000 from the Importers and Traders Bank of New
York City, Hershey expanded once again. The Jim Cracks, Roly Polies,
Melbas, Empires, Icelets, and Cocoanut Ices sold very well. By 1893, the
Lancaster Caramel Company had opened candy-making plants in M
Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and Geneva, Illinois, employing 1,400
people.
Established Hershey Chocolate Company
Hershey used the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago-
celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the
New World-as an opportunity to study chocolate making as it was
practiced in Europe. He examined chocolate-rolling machinery from the
J.M. Lehmann Company of Dresden, Germany, finally deciding to buy it
for his own company. At that time, milk chocolate was regarded as a
luxury imported item, made by hand in a secret Swiss process. Hershey
was confident that he could mass-produce enough chocolate to satisfy the

3. demand of the American public. In 1894, he opened the Hershey
Chocolate Company, producing breakfast cocoa, baking chocolate, and
sweet chocolate coatings for the caramels.
After perfecting his recipe, Hershey expanded the business to
produce 114 kinds of chocolates, including novelty items like chocolate
cigars and chocolate bicycles. In order to focus all his attention on the
chocolate business, Hershey sold the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1900
for one million dollars to his competitor, the American Caramel
Company. He kept exclusive rights to supply dipping chocolate to the
company, however, and used the money from the sale to build a new
chocolate factory.
In 1897, Hershey purchased the Derry Church homestead where he
had been born, intending to give the farm to his parents. Instead, he
decided to use the rural Dauphin County land to build his chocolate
plant, since it was ideally situated in an area full of dairies, and had plenty
of fresh water necessary for cooling the factory's output. He bought 1,500
acres of adjacent property and, in 1903, began construction on the
chocolate plant. Hershey knew his workers would need a place to live and
raise their families. In conjunction with the new factory he planned and
built an entire utopian community, complete with houses, a post office,
churches, shops, schools, and even a trolley car for transportation.
Hershey planned that his new factory would mass-produce only one
product, making it affordable for everyone. Working with his recipe
makers, he developed a formula for milk chocolate that allowed for mass
production. In February 1900, he introduced the milk chocolate Hershey
Bar, which sold for pennies and brought affordable chocolate to the
masses. The bars were so popular that Hershey found he did not need to
advertise. Although the company continued its no advertising policy until
1968, Hershey was fond of the occasional self-promotion. One of the first
automobiles in Pennsylvania bore the Hershey name painted on its side,
drawing attention and orders for the Hershey salesmen who zoomed
around at the car's top speed of nine miles per hour. Despite its cost of
$2,000, a huge sum at that time, the electric car generated crowds and
headlines wherever it went.

4. The company and the town prospered. In 1908, the Hershey
Chocolate Company incorporated. By 1915, the plant had expanded to
cover 35 acres, with sales growing just as quickly. Within 20 years, sales
had increased to $20 million. The community, with its chocolate-related
street names, offered housing, sewerage, electricity, schools, stores, a
hospital, and fire department, a park and zoo, as well as a trolley line to
bring in workers from neighbouring towns.
In the years following the collapse of the stock market in 1929,
nearly one third of United States workers lost their jobs. Anxious to help
his own employees-plus take advantage of the Depression's low
construction costs-Hershey embarked on a building project in 1930 that
included a hotel, a high school, community building, sports arena, and a
new air-conditioned office building. The Hotel Hershey incorporated his
favorite details from hotels worldwide. Hershey would later note proudly
that none of his workers were ever laid off during the Depression; in fact,
he hired 600 additional laborers. The company diversified and branched
out, making different kinds of candy, including the foil-wrapped
Hershey's Kisses (introduced in 1907), Mr. Goodbar, the Krackel Bar, and
Hershey's Miniatures. After losing money on a sugar deal, Hershey bought
land in Cuba, where he began growing and processing his own sugar cane.
Despite efforts to anticipate his workers' every need, some
employees attempted to form a union in 1937, to protest working
conditions that included a 60-hour work week. The Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) shut down the factory with a strike that only ended
when local dairy farmers, whose livelihoods depended on selling milk to
the company, physically attacked the workers. By 1940, the American
Federation of Labor (AFL) had organized a union at the plant, creating an
association to promote and protect the rights of the workers.

5. Hershey's Living Legacy
In 1898, Milton Hershey married Catherine Elizabeth "Kitty"
Sweeney, an Irish-Catholic from Jamestown, New York. Anxious to use
their wealth to help those less fortunate than themselves, the Hersheys
founded a school for orphaned boys in 1909. Originally called the Hershey
Industrial School, it was designed to train boys in farming and industrial
trades so they would become able to support themselves. After Kitty
Hershey died in 1915, Hershey donated his entire fortune-$60 million-in a
trust to the school. It was renamed the Milton Hershey School and
expanded to serve children of both sexes from disrupted homes from
kindergarten through high school. The 10,000-acre school, through its
trust, owns 40 percent of the stock of Hershey Foods, and controls 75
percent of the corporation's voting shares. "I don't think I'd be alive today
without that place," Hershey School graduate Randy Zerr told Eric Ries
of Techniques. "If there's anything I can do for the school, I will." Zerr took
advantage of the school's horticultural program and works as a
groundskeeper at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. Many Hershey graduates go on to college. Some have even
graduated to executive positions within the Hershey Chocolate Company.
The Hershey Chocolate Company continued to create new products.
During World War II, they developed an unmeltable, four-ounce bar with
extra calories and vitamins, which could be used as emergency provisions
for soldiers and sailors. The company made more than a billion of the
"Field Ration D" bars. In 1942, the U.S. government gave Hershey the
Army/Navy E award for his civilian contribution to the war effort. In 1995,
he was honored once again by being pictured on a postage stamp
commemorating him as part of the U.S. Postal Service's Great Americans
series.
Hershey died in Hershey, Pennsylvania on October 13, 1945, one
year after his retirement as chairman of the board. He was 88 years old. By
the end of his life Hershey had donated most of his money to his town
and the school he built. After his death, the sale of Hershey's personal
possessions raised less than $20,000. The chocolate factory he built in

6. Hershey, Pennsylvania, remains the largest in the world. In 1963, the
Hershey Chocolate Corporation donated $50 million to build the Milton S.
Hershey Medical Center of Pennsylvania State University, which houses a
hospital, medical school, clinics, and research facilities.
The town of Hershey, Pennsylvania is still home to about 12,000
people and draws more than 30 million visitors each year. They come to
see Hershey Park, which boasts a roller coaster, Ferris wheel, other rides,
and a visitor's center. The center, built in 1973 to accommodate the
massive crowds packing the factory tours, draws more visitors annually
than the White House. Guests can take a tour through a mock chocolate
factory that includes a ride through a simulated roasting oven, and
culminates with samples of Hershey chocolate.
After enduring years of failure, Milton Hershey (1857-1945) built a
business empire as the world's first mass producer of chocolate bars.
Through generous donations, he used his entire fortune to help those less
fortunate than himself.