It’s hard to believe the candy operation that grew into the Hershey conglomerate shared workspace in its earliest days with an organ manufacturer, brewery, and carriage works.
That’s not the only surprise in this lively biography of chocolate king Milton S. Hershey—a philanthropist in the grandest sense who created a utopian town in Pennsylvania complete with housing for workers and schools for children.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael D’Antonio, the book details the unlikely rise to commercial and philanthropic prominence of Hershey (1857-1945), whose first product, caramels, was based on a borrowed recipe. Hershey’s early life foretold nothing but failure. Haphazardly educated, he struggled to find his niche as an entrepreneur. By the age of twenty-eight he had a string of failed enterprises spanning from New York to Chicago. But he learned from mistakes and was savvy enough to market the caramels as a healthy treat prepared with fresh milk, a big selling point in the days of erratic refrigeration and pasteurization. And Hershey was lucky: A British distributor expressed interest just as a ninety-day bank payment loomed.
“After so much struggle it was strange that one big break—an order from an importer who happened to pass through town—would make Milton Hershey a success,” writes D’Antonio. “The classic script would call for, at the very least, some minor setbacks and skirmishes with tough competitors. But none of those things happened. Instead, Hershey’s sales abroad increased steadily, giving him a secure base for his business.”
The rest of the book outlines Hershey’s move to chocolate and his founding of a town in his name, as well as the extraordinary care he took to make the area pleasant and healthy for factory workers, their families and, a big concern of his, orphans. In turn, cheery pictures of the town and park—complete with zoo—were sometimes tucked into candy wrappers as promotional material. Hershey was no “miracle-working saint,” the author points out. “He was profoundly ambitious, and more than a little egotistical. But these qualities were required of any man who would build so much and acquire so much power.”
These days, with chocolate competition from Mars bars to Godiva, the Hershey brand and its founder’s ideals may seem rather quaint. But as a story of path-breaking entrepreneurship mixed with social goals, his choices may also sound appealingly innovative to readers today.
- Martha Lagace