Milton Snavely Hershey

Milton Snavely Hershey (born Sept. 13, 1857, near Hockersville, Pa., U.S.—died Oct. 13, 1945, Hershey, Pa.) was an American manufacturer and philanthropist who founded the Hershey Chocolate Corporation and was instrumental in popularizing chocolate candy throughout much of the world.

Following an incomplete rural school education, Hershey was apprenticed at age 15 to a confectioner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After completing his apprenticeship in 1876 he set up his own candy shop in Philadelphia, but the venture failed six years later. After an attempt to manufacture candy in New York City also ended in failure, Hershey returned to Lancaster, where his innovative use of fresh milk in caramels proved enormously successful. He set up the Lancaster Caramel Company, which continued to make caramels in the 1890s while Hershey became increasingly interested in chocolate making.

In 1900 Hershey sold his caramel company for $1,000,000, after which he concentrated on perfecting a formula for chocolate bars. In 1903 he began building at the site of what became Hershey, Pennsylvania, a factory that became the world’s largest chocolate manufacturing plant. Based on the popularity of its milk chocolate bars, his new company grew rapidly despite Hershey’s refusal to advertise its products.

The company town of Hershey received many public amenities under his firm but benevolent control. In 1918 Hershey gave the bulk of his fortune to the Milton Hershey School, a private residential school he and his wife, Catherine, had founded in 1909 for orphaned boys. In 1935 he established the M.S. Hershey Foundation to support educational and cultural institutions in the Hershey community.