FAYE MOSS: Hello everyone! Welcome back to Superstars in History, the talk show featuring famous people from the past. I'm your host, Faye Moss. Right now I'm dying for some chocolate, and it's all the fault of our guest today! He's the man who introduced Americans to chocolate, and he's famous for his philanthropy and the town that bears his name. Straight from history, please welcome Milton Hershey!
MILTON HERSHEY: Hello, Faye. May I offer you a Hershey's bar?
FAYE MOSS: Thanks, Mr. Hershey! I can't eat during the show, so let's get this interview started! As a kid, did you dream of owning a chocolate factory?
MILTON HERSHEY: Not at all. When I was born in rural Pennsylvania in 1857, most Americans hadn't even tasted chocolate. In the mid-nineteenth century, "candy" meant treats like taffy, caramels, and hard candies. I got in the business purely by accident.
FAYE MOSS: That sounds intriguing! Tell us more.
MILTON HERSHEY: My family moved around a lot because my father had trouble holding a job. I was never able to attend one school for very long, and by the time I was 14, my mother thought it would be better for me to work. So I quit school and became a printer's apprentice, but I hated that job. One day I decided to let my straw hat fall into a printing press. The press stopped working, and I got fired.
FAYE MOSS: Did you find a job in a candy factory?
MILTON HERSHEY: Not a factory. I spent the next four years at an ice cream and candy shop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was good at making candy and learned so much that I opened my own shop in Philadelphia. It was 1876, and many people were visiting the Centennial Exposition—the first world's fair in the United States. I ran a pipe outside to tempt customers with the delicious smells of candy-making. Lots of them stopped in the shop on their way to the fair. As time passed, I expanded into the wholesale business and moved to a bigger shop.
FAYE MOSS: It sounds like you were a success.
MILTON HERSHEY: Yes, for half-a-dozen years. But then I made some bad decisions and had to close my business. The next year I opened another shop in New York City. When that one failed, I was forced to return to Lancaster. Maybe I'd have been more successful if I'd had more education.
FAYE MOSS: I'm sure your family was delighted to see you.
MILTON HERSHEY: Not delighted enough to help me start a new business! My mother's family had financed my Philadelphia and New York stores, but by now everyone thought I was as irresponsible as my father. I had to start my new venture—making caramels—on my own. When I received a check for a big order, I was so excited I ran to the bank wearing my apron. My factory eventually employed over 700 people.
FAYE MOSS: What motivated you to start making chocolate?
MILTON HERSHEY: With the success of my caramel factory, I had money to travel. In Europe I tasted the finest Swiss milk chocolate—an expensive luxury. Unlike American chocolate, which was bitter and brittle, this was sweet and creamy. But the real turning point came in 1893, when I attended another world's fair in Chicago. A German company's exhibit demonstrated chocolate making—from roasting cacao beans to the finished product—right there. I kept returning to watch the machinery and sample the chocolate. I believed chocolate had a bigger future than caramels. When the fair ended, I purchased equipment from the exhibit and started a product line that included chocolate coatings and cocoa.
FAYE MOSS: Did you also make a milk chocolate bar?
MILTON HERSHEY: Not yet. No one in America had made milk chocolate before, so I had to figure it out myself. Fortunately I had always enjoyed experimenting with recipes. In 1900 I sold my caramel company for a million dollars to focus on chocolate. The first Hershey's milk chocolate was produced that year but could only be sold locally because it spoiled quickly. I hadn't figured out how to keep milk chocolate from spoiling yet. With a small group of employees, I worked night and day for several more years on this problem. We experimented with different ways of condensing milk. Finally we discovered a method that allowed us to mass-produce long-lasting chocolate bars at a price everyone could afford: five cents.
FAYE MOSS: And they stayed a nickel for many years. Even before you had the perfect recipe, you were confident you'd succeed. You had already started building a giant chocolate factory—and a town for the workers!
MILTON HERSHEY: That's right. I began construction on the world's largest chocolate factory in 1903, and it opened two years later. I wanted my employees to have a good place to live, so I oversaw every detail, including naming the streets. The main streets intersected at Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues, and other streets were named after cacao-growing areas. The houses were high quality and had indoor plumbing and electricity before many other American homes did.
FAYE MOSS: Hershey, Pennsylvania even became a tourist attraction!
MILTON HERSHEY: Yes, that's because Hershey was more than a factory town. There were parks, theaters, and even a zoo!
FAYE MOSS: Tell us about the school you founded.
MILTON HERSHEY: It was my dear wife's idea. Kitty was always sick, and we were unable to have children. In 1909 we founded a residential school for orphan boys. Unlike most orphanages where the children lived in dorms, our boys lived in cottages with house parents. In addition to their schoolwork, they were expected to learn a trade and milk cows. A chocolate factory needs lots of milk!
FAYE MOSS: It sounds like the school was really important to you.
MILTON HERSHEY: I wanted other boys to have the stability I never had. In 1918, three years after Kitty died, I donated my multi-million-dollar fortune to the school. Because I had no children, I decided the Hershey boys would become my heirs.
FAYE MOSS: Thank you for sharing your story today—I'll think of you every time I eat chocolate! We'll let you get back to history now, and I'll enjoy the treat you brought me!
MILTON HERSHEY: Thank you, Faye.
FAYE MOSS: Milton Hershey continued to take an interest in the chocolate business and the school until he died in 1945. Originally only white male orphans were enrolled at the Milton Hershey School, but by the mid-twentieth century, the school was welcoming all low-income boys and girls. The town, which features street lights shaped like Hershey's Kisses and smells like chocolate, still draws tourists, especially to its amusement park.
That's all for today. See you next time on Superstars in History!