The town Hershey built

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. 

Up next, the story behind a chocolate empire.

Hershey’s chocolate recipe has stood for decades. You change it, people notice. That was evident recently when complaints about the use of artificial ingredients in the brand’s Reese’s peanut butter cups led to a public company promise to revert to the real thing.

EICHER: The company’s history began 150 years ago next month, when Founder Milton Hershey opened his first confectionery store. 

The chocolatier ultimately employed and contracted with thousands of workers and dairy farmers in a township in Pennsylvania. The town was later named in honor of him and his many contributions to the community.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher paid a visit to the town now known as Hershey, PA, to get a glimpse (and, I am reliably told, a taste!) of how chocolate made life sweeter for the workers, and the world.

EMMA EICHER: Milton Hershey was born in 1857 into a poor family, the son of a failed entrepreneur. They often moved around, so Hershey’s schooling was inconsistent.

JENNIFER HENDERSON: Later in life he said he had about the equivalent of a fourth grade education.

That’s Jennifer Henderson, a senior archivist for the Hershey Community Archives.

She says Hershey had the same entrepreneurial spirit as his father. At fourteen, he apprenticed for a candy-maker in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He then borrowed money to open his first candy store in Philadelphia.

But the store failed, and he declared bankruptcy. A second store in New York City also closed.

Henderson says Hershey’s parents influenced their son to keep going.

HENDERSON: He had two failed businesses, but that didn't stop him.

While his father was an idealist, his mother was a hardworking and devout Mennonite.

HENDERSON: We always think that Milton Hershey got the best of both of his parents in that he was a dreamer, but he kept persevering to realize that dream.

In 1900, Hershey’s dream came true when he sold his first chocolate bar. He opened a new factory in Derry Township five years later and set a goal to produce chocolate bars everyone could afford.

Hershey’s chocolate was unlike any other on the market. Gallons of fresh milk, cocoa beans, and sugar were mixed into a warm liquid called “chocolate liquor,” though it didn’t contain alcohol.

Then the liquor was rolled and rotated for better flavor. The Hershey museum shows the process of using a machine to churn the mixture:

NARRATOR: But in the end, it makes Hershey's chocolate super smooth …

SOUND: [Machine revving, mixing]

The result was silky, rich chocolate used in the company’s most iconic candy:

NARRATOR: For the big taste you can't resist. It's the big taste of chocolate in a little Hershey's kiss.

In 1907, Hershey began selling the Hershey’s Kiss.

HENDERSON: The kisses at the time were all wrapped by hand. You would have your piece of foil, put the kiss tissue down, and then put the kiss on top of it, and then wrap it all up.

Since the Kiss was so popular, there were a lot of imitations. When packaging became automated, Hershey added a “plume” at the top of each Kiss. That was so shoppers could tell it was the real deal.

HENDERSON: And so you could now see, without having to open the Kiss, that it was a Hershey's product.

Underneath the museum is a huge collection of artifacts, including original candy packaging.

Henderson pointed out one of her personal favorites in the collection.

HENDERSON: So, this is the Kiss tissue. It's tiny, but that's the little baby in the cocoa bean. That was their trademark for the company for until 1968.

Hershey’s factory attracted dairy farmers and workers. He paid fair wages and invested in the community. He built homes for his employees, established public transportation, parks, and a hospital.

And of course, he created what we now know as the Hershey amusement Park.

HENDERSON: It started out as beautiful green space with the little playground for the kids, and over time, he kept adding new attractions to it.

Henderson says Hershey’s philosophy was simple. Happy workers are more efficient and create a better product.

But Hershey’s generosity also stemmed from his mother’s religious upbringing, and his own childhood poverty. He followed biblical values, though he did not claim a formal religion.

Hershey once said that his hands on earth do God’s work.

HENDERSON: The community and the world has been blessed with what he was able to do for us.

Those blessings extended far beyond running a company. Nine years after Hershey sold his first chocolate bar, he started a school for orphan boys. 

Anthony Haubert is the PR manager for the museum.

ANTHONY HAUBERT: He has helped probably hundreds of thousands of underprivileged children since its creation in 1909. So he just really had a, just a wonderfully generous heart.

Later, the Milton Hershey School changed from providing for orphans to offering services to any child in need. Today, it provides housing, clothing, food, and medical care to K-12 students.

One of those students eventually became the CEO of the company, fulfilling Milton Hershey’s dream of having a Hershey school graduate run his business.

Hershey died in 1945, at 88 years old. He and his wife donated their fortune to the school, which still uses the money to operate.

Here’s Henderson again:

HENDERSON: I don't know if there's anyone still living who actually met him, but we still hold him in very high regard, and we want to do what's right by him.

These days, the Hershey Company is one of the biggest chocolate manufacturers in the world. But its greatest legacy is a thriving community that loves to tell the Hershey story.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

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