One of the twentieth century's most eccentric and idealistic titans of industry, Milton S. Hershey brought affordable milk chocolate to America, creating and then satisfying the chocoholic urges of millions. He pioneered techniques of branding, mass production, and marketing and gained widespread fame as the Chocolate King.
But as he developed massive factories, Cuban sugar plantations, and a vacation wonderland called Hershey-park, M.S. never lost sight of a grander goal. Determined that his wealth produce a lasting legacy, he tried to create perfect places where his workers could live, perfect schools for their children, and a perfect charity to salvage the lives of needy children in perpetuity.
Along the way, he overcame his personal childhood traumas as well as the death, after a short and intensely romantic marriage, of the one woman he ever loved.
In childhood, Milton was torn by the constant conflicts between his stern mother and starry-eyed father. He watched his father go bust in the oil fields and his sister die of scarlet fever. As a young entrepreneur he failed in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago before finally succeeding in Lancaster, thanks to a borrowed caramel recipe and a lucky break provided by a British importer. Then, at the history-shaping Columbian Exhibition, Milton found the chocolate-making technology that would allow him to bring a new taste to America. When they heard about his plan to build a chocolate empire complete with its own little city in rural Pennsylvania, his friends said he needed a legal guardian.
Ten years later, Milton controlled the U.S. chocolate market, and his town, Hershey, Pennsylvania, was the ideal American village, with free amenities that rivaled the best in big cities. Trains brought thousands of tourists.
every day to see the chocolate works, the miracle town, the Hershey zoo, and an enormous amusement park.
Not content with these accomplishments, a childless M.S. Hershey founded an orphanage at his family homestead. After his wife Catherine's death, the press revealed that he had secretly willed his entire estate to the Hershey Industrial School. Through the Great Depression, Hershey used his fortune to fund a massive building program that kept all his workers employed and spared his town the real hardships of the era.
Before he died, he even gave away his mansion, keeping just two rooms for himself.
Remarkable as Hershey was, his legacy is even more: powerful. It includes the $8 billion Hershey Trust (the single largest private fund for children in the world), an idyllic company town in central Pennsylvania, and a corporation that proves that the ideals of community and commerce can lead to profit.
This first-ever, major biography of an American icon paints a vivid picture of what Milton S. Hershey accomplished as the ultimate progressive business-man. Hershey's life suggests a kind of capitalism that seems warmer and more personal. He was a gambler, raconteur, despot, and servant. And he stands as a rare, and perhaps, unique, example of ambition, altruism, ego, and humility.”