Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams

Michael D'Antonio has achieved a rare balance in this best-selling biography. He recounts a complex life story that it is often as vividly exciting as a good novel, but he carefully and factually grounds it as solid history. What's more, he balances an element of exposé with respect for his subject. D'Antonio shares all the lurid gossip about Milton S. Hershey and outlines all of the chocolate manufacturer's flaws and limitations. Nevertheless, he retains a respectful tone in absorbing, readable prose. He shows how some of Hershey's good deeds may have included elements of self-interest, whimsy or even neurosis, but he does not dismiss their essential goodness. Finally, he explains how Hershey's personal qualities led to his success, and how larger social trends shaped his business. We recommend this book to those who are interested in industrial history, and to those who love chocolate and are intrigued by the man and the business behind the quintessential American candy bar.

Michael D'Antonio has achieved a rare balance in this best-selling biography. He recounts a complex life story that it is often as vividly exciting as a good novel, but he carefully and factually grounds it as solid history. What's more, he balances an element of expos? with respect for his subject. D'Antonio shares all the lurid gossip about Milton S. Hershey and outlines all of the chocolate manufacturer's flaws and limitations. Nevertheless, he retains a respectful tone in absorbing, readable prose. He shows how some of Hershey's good deeds may have included elements of self-interest, whimsy or even neurosis, but he does not dismiss their essential goodness. Finally, he explains how Hershey's personal qualities led to his success, and how larger social trends shaped his business. We recommend this book to those who are interested in industrial history, and to those who love chocolate and are intrigued by the man and the business behind the quintessential American candy bar.

After reading most of what had been written about Milton Hershey, and after being a Hershey tour guide for nearly 20 years, I was thrilled to get my hands on the first scholarly biography of the America's most generous industrial barron. Even though young Milton could not be considered a "poor boy" in economic terms, he felt abandoned by his dreaming and adventurous father. Milton failed at school, farming, job training and self-employment...a typical looser. Yet he had an inate sense of optimism that kept him going: "If at first you don't succeed..." should be his epitaph. But orphan boys and girls are his real opus. After amassing over $60 million he and his wife Catherine donated it all to the Hershey School for children from broken homes which still thrives today. M.S. Hershey's legacy is also found in the quaint and charming factory town with lights shaped like Hershey Kisses and people who admire their founder as if he were still alive. The combined Hershey Schools, Trust, and Companies are now worth over $10 billion. However the real breakthrough in this new book is the amazing discovery and revelation about Catherine's illness and Milton's decade-long, worldwide search for a cure. A quest that sadly failed to save his beloved Kitty, but it cemented a beautiful and romantic relationship into a remarkable love story. I have always felt that this secret love story was at the hidden heart of the Hershey tale. In so many ways it was his failures that lead to his later successes. We all have our failings and sometimes crushing losses to add to our burdens. The Hershey story is an inspiration to all of us "loosers". A big Thank You to Michael D'Antonio for doing all the work to bring this untold love story to light. Bill Reitter

Teddy Roosevelt called them the "malefactors of great wealth", the Gilded Age magnates who controlled an overwhelming portion of commerce and didn't care much about who got hurt as they got rich. Milton S. Hershey had plenty of their characteristics. He was pushy, censorious, and irascible. He certainly did make his millions, and he certainly enjoyed them, but he did not neglect his workers. In _Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams_ (Simon and Schuster), Michael D'Antonio writes, "If it's a rule that behind every great fortune lies a great crime, M. S. Hershey was the exception." Hershey was not without his flaws, and didn't treat everyone affably, and certainly might be accused of paternalism, but he was the "Good Millionaire", a unique entrepreneur who harnessed his own ambition and put it to higher purposes than greed or self-aggrandizement. Everyone knows Hershey Kisses and Hershey Bars; the wrapper of the bar is so familiar that it is parodied for the cover of this delightful book, forcing a legal decision that required a sticker be placed on it: "Neither authorized nor sponsored by the Hershey Company." The company need not have worried. Both Hershey and HersheyCo come off well. Hershey was born in 1857 on a Pennsylvania farm, but his family shifted around due to his improvident father's ways His mother had ambitions for her son who started working in confections after leaving school at age twelve. His initial businesses failed, but he succeeded in caramels, which he worried were a fad. At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he saw the German chocolate machines and realized that chocolate would be a staple of the candy business. When the exposition closed, he bought every one of the chocolate machines and had them shipped to what would become the town of Hershey, a planned town for workers that was far more successful than any similar schemes. Some citizens objected to having intrusive care taken of them, but as the town grew, the old man was regarded as a friendly father figure, one of them. He did lead a low-key life when he was in Hershey, but the townspeople didn't know much about how he spent when he went on vacation in Europe, or how much he enjoyed betting for high stakes at the casinos. Hershey wanted the town to support the company, and vice versa, but he had bigger ideas of service. He aimed for the profits from his corporation to go to his heirs in the school he had founded, whom he saw as the "little fellows" like he himself had been, with impoverished families, poor school habits, and poor prospects. "Obviously they were his sons," D'Antonio writes, "and he was giving them the stability, safety, and community he had missed as he followed his father and mother from place to place." The town of Hershey sold chocolates, but from the start also sold itself as a tourist destination, which it still is, since people are interested in walking on Chocola

Everyone knows Mr. Hershey for chocolate. Fewer people know that he secretly gave almost his entire fortune away 35 years before his death to provide perpetual support for an orphanage. He then carefully oversaw that orphanage, which grew to 1,500 students and became the Milton Hershey School. He also established an orphanage of similar size in Cuba, where he had large investments in sugar operations. I found this book to be extremely well-researched and well-written. I have read 3 previous books and many articles on Mr. Hershey and this book covered many facets that were not previously reported. The author does an exemplary job of putting incidents in Mr. Hershey's life within a larger historical context. The author's main goal was to delve into Mr. Hershey's character and actions in a way that goes beyond the myths. In the process, he finds some faults (such as gambling and a temper), but this critical examination provides a much more refined picture of the man's greatness. As a result, we see that Mr. Hershey's accomplishments stand up to intensive scrutiny. The book describes a long rivalry between Mr. Hershey and William Wrigley. It started when Mr. Hershey thought that Wrigley had cheated him while they were gambling on an ocean liner. That spurred Mr. Hershey to enter the chewing gum business (which lost millions) and to almost buy the Philadelphia Phillies to compete with Wrigley's team. One item in the book that has gotten some unpleasant attention is a possibility that his wife had late stage syphilis. This discussion is only on one page out of a 300 page book. The author theorizes that the illness was without symptoms for many years after they met and was not contagious at that stage. The book reports that after a 1933 study predicted that the Trust would generate more income that MHS could spend, Mr. Hershey specifically changed the Deed of Trust to order the Managers to serve as many kids as the funds allow. The book tells a story about an incoming student to the orphanage in the 1930s, who enrolled at age 7 after his mother died. He said Mr. Hershey "was right there when I first arrived at the school and they were giving me my clothes. He put his arm around me and said, `From now on, we'll take care of you. You're one of my boys." He said Mr. Hershey visited them every 2 weeks, and he remembers playing with Mr. Hershey in his car behind the steering wheel pretending to drive. The book also describes the controversy surrounding the then-proposed sale of the Hershey Company in late 2001 by the Trust that Mr. Hershey had established.