Milton Hershey - I was Wrong, I was Surprised

I thought Milton Hershey who started the whole Hershey empire was just another entrepreneurial capitalist intent on amassing huge sums of money. I was so wrong.

I have been reading the book Chocolate by Mort Rosenblum. This is a nonfiction book that traces chocolate's origins and all things significant tied up with chocolate. I hit the chapter on Hershey. He had very, very humble beginnings and ends up having some success making caramels - most caramels at that time were made with wax and tallow, if you can imagine that, but he made his with fresh cream. He is in his mid 30's when he goes to an expo in Chicago and sees a man operating chocolate making equipment that he built. Hershey buys the man's entire display and machinery and begins making chocolate in his caramel factory. He gets married and sells his candy business to get away from his mother and father. He cruises around the world for a while, and then comes back -to build his magic kingdom.

But this is where I was so wrong about him - it wasn't about money- it was about making an Eden. Quoting from another book, The Emperors of Chocolate, this is what really happened: "His vision was an industrial utopia, a real-life Chocolate Town, where anyone who wanted a job could have one, where children would grow up in celery-crisp air, where mortgages would dwindle in perpetual prosperity. Clear water and clear consciences. This was Hershey's vision of home sweet home."

So that is what he did. He built "Hershey Park". He provided free medical care, subsidized electricity, trolley service, a theater, a dance hall, a swimming pool, a junior college and a hockey arena. He ran the towns department store, the pharmacy and newspaper. He built homes for executives and workers, each in a different design. He founded a school for troubled orphans on 485 acres along with their homestead.

The book I am reading, Chocolate, continues: "His wife died at 42, and so he gave his mansion to the Hershey Country Club, keeping only 2 rooms for himself. Three years after her death, he quietly signed over his entire fortune to the Hershey Trust to keep the school going. This gift included not only thousands more acres of land but also his stock in the company, worth more than $60 million. At sixty-one, with two and a half decades left to live, Hershey had given away everything he had."

This was one nice guy. In the book I am finding that the really nasty candy people are the Mars candy people. I have never thought about Milton Hershey - never gone to Hershey Park - never really had any desire - but after reading about him and the dream he tried to make reality - I am curious to see what he built, knowing the reasons why.