Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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 Chocolate Avenue and Cocoa Avenue, sniffing the chocolate-scented air, and seeing the lampposts that are shaped like Hershey's Kisses. The Milton Hershey School is the best endowed K-12 school in the nation (vastly exceeding the second-place, academically elite Phillips Exeter, and also exceeding most universities). It is now coed and is expanding to take in 2,000 boarding pupils. Hershey managed to change our candy habits forever, and to make his millions, but also to make his beneficial mark. As D'Antonio writes, after Andrew Carnegie died, no one ever asked, "What would Andrew Carnegie do?", and no one asked that about Vanderbilt or Henry Ford. But the question in Hershey's version is still pertinent in the mind of many who live in the town or work in the company, or who have graduated from the school. They admire Milton Hershey, and feel that carrying out his wishes is still important for community good. Decades after Hershey's death, he is still exercising his power of benevolent control.

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

There's the old line: Inside every fat book is a skinny book trying to get out. Inside this thin book was a thinner book trying to get out. If there was a style to put to this book, it would be redundancy. The author repeated himself after he repeated himself.

M.S. Hershey was an interesting man and his life story a unique one. The company that bears his name is also unique. Unfortunately, by the end of the book, I still did not get the feeling I knew the man very well. There seemed to be little beyond what could be gleened from contemporaneous newspaper and magazine articles which, by the author's characterization, were manipulated and PR pieces.

There actually seemed to be more personal information about Kitty Hershey, M.S.'s wife, and Henry, his father. This was probably due to the fact that there were sources used who knew them personally and the information came from non-company sources.

All in all this was interesting, but I expected much more, especially after the opening pages that described the orphanage that is the majority owner of Hershey stock (making it by far the best-endowed school in the world). The tracking of Hershey's early life and struggles was also good. The book seemed to fall flat at the point where Hershey developed the chocolate and started the chocolate business. (There is a huge hole where one would expect something about how he developed it - other than he experimented and got a good recipe.) I suspect the flatness was because the vast majority of the information from the point of development onward came from company sources with few independent ones.

Michael D' Antonio has written a wonderful biography of Milton S. Hershey, the man who became a multi-millionaire by making milk chocolate a five-cent treat in the United States.

Very much to his credit, D' Antonio delivers a biography of a complex man from another era without super-imposing contemporary politically correct value judgments. D' Antonio deserves a gold star or two for that.

Milton Hershey's life is not an easy one to document; he was not an overtly public man. Rather, he led two lives. The first as reservd tycoon in his native Pennsylvania locale, the other as a a sometimes free-spending bon vivant traveling the United States, Europe and Cuba.

D' Antonio chronicles Hershey's beginnings with his stern, no-nonsense mother with her Mennonite background and Milton's dreamy, never successful father. Backed with the unwavering faith of his mother and aunt and funds from his extended family, Milton pursued a career in confectionary. One business failure followed another, but Milton's faith in himself never faltered. Then he discovered caramels - and became the caramel king. Working with clearly limited resources, D' Antonio weaves an interesting story of an interesting man that becomes still more interesting when Hershey sees that the caramel market is limited.

He sells out and could have easily retired to a life of luxurious ease.

He had surprised everyone and married Catherine Sweeney, some fifteen years younger, whose actual background remains a mystery. She may, according to some, have been a "working girl".

Though rich, Hershey pursued the dream of creating an inexpensive milk chocolate candy - and through native ingenuity and peristence succeeded. He built a multi-million dollar business that at one time controlled more than 90% of the U.S. market.

The story of Hershey is fascinating. He built a town, Hershey PA, incorporating his utopian beliefs - and it worked. He created a sugar empire in Cuba that almost bankrupted him. He set up a unique orphanage and then endowed it with all his wealth. He was a mercurial man who could fire long-time employees in a moment of pique. He overlooked the failings of favorites.

But no one (except perhaps some left-wing academics) could call Hershey a bad man. Almost alone among the mega-rich of the era, Hershey was animated by a true humanism and D' Antonio fully describes this without turning Hershey into a saint.

Hershey is an exceptional biography. It describes an American original, Milton S. Hershey, a self-made man who shared himself with his workers, his community and his nation. Quite a guy and he has found himself in the hands of a very competent biographer.

Jerry

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.

A fair, balanced, sympathetic look at a remarkable man. I found this book, overall, to be very lively and interesting.

The only shortcoming in this book, I think, is the lack of detail in some portions of Hershey's life. At times, years are glossed over with a statement or two about Hershey's general attitude or behavior during that period. At other times, the book feels like it is a little more about the Hershey company's history than Hershey himself.

Yet those times are few. And since Hershey was a very private man, overall, and his public face was highly sanitized in some ways, I can understand that parts of his life or history must be very hard to figure out. Nevertheless, there were several times that I really yearned for more detail, or evidence to back up the author's broad statements. At times it felt like it jumped from anecdote to anecdote, with not enough in between.

Despite that, the majority of this book is fairly detailed, but not in a boring, pedantic way. Definitely worth reading if interested at all in the company, entrepreneurship, or the history of this time period.

Sidenote: Kindle formatting is great, no problems.

Michael D'Antonio has given us a serious biography of a complicated, but highly admirable, man. A "chocolate king" who founded a town and created and endowed schools and home for orphans is not a figure to be treated lightly, and D'Antonio does not fail. While there is no question that D'Antonio likes his subject, Hershey is not given a free pass. His enormous philanthropy is described right alongside irrational temper tantrums and firings. Spying on worker's drinking habits is described alongside his own gambling habits. The rise of the Hersey empire, and the town he founded, is described in great detail. The book opens with the drama of a challenge to the Trust of his school for orphans and the reality of business in this day and age. "What would Milton do?" is the question. What the book tells us is that it is by no means certain what Milton would do. He had contemplated selling his empire at more than one point, ensuring the resources for the continued care of the orphans in his charge. We see the rise and life of the Hershey empire, and Milton's relationships with others. The possibility of the true nature of his wife's illness is mentioned and described. Some have been offended by this, I'd suggest they get over it. It has no bearing on what type of person she was, or how much he loved her. We see the evolution of the business, the international interests, the town and school. It is a satisfying read. The only additional material I would have liked is some more description of Hershey's interactions with some of the other business and political leaders of the day. We are told of a feud with Wrigley, and the suspicion that Wrigley had cheated in gambling, but little else. We know of TR's trust busting, and that Hershey was considered to be quite apart from the Robber Barons of the day. Did TR and Hershey ever interact beyond the one or two mentioned invitations? If so, how? This historical information may not exist in the archives, but was the only gap I felt while reading.

Someone told me recently, in response to my complaint that even
Hershey's candy was being made in Mexico now, "No matter where
in the world Hershey's candies are made or sold, all profits return to
Hershey PA and the Hershey Trust." This book proves that statement
to be true. And I was wrong. All Hershey's candy is NOT made outside
the U.S.A. now.

Milton Hershey was much more than an American entrepreneur
and the creator of a candy bar recognized around the world.
Hershey started out with little education and even less money.
All he had was hope, determination, supportive relatives, and a head
full of plans and dreams. He ended up a multi millionaire with a heart
and a chocolate empire located in a town he created out of rural
Pennsylvania farm land.

Hershey was born in 1857, the son of a wandering father who chased
failed dreams and a no nonsense mother. As a youth, Hershey dreamed
of becoming a candy maker. Each new plan failed miserably, funded
on a shoe string by his mother or aunt. But he learned from each
failed business as he dreamed of creating a chocolate candy bar that
every American -- no matter how poor -- could afford. Using
techniques he learned from European chocolatiers, he experimented
until he perfected his own recipe with a distinctly American twist to
create the iconic chocolate bar. The Hershey bar sold for a nickel. At
first he hawked them in small venues. Slowly and gradually, as sales
increased, he started on the second leg of his dream. He'd build his
own town around a chocolate factory. His workers would realize
their own dreams by living in decent homes built by Hershey. They
would pull themselves up out of poverty as Hershey had, through
honest work. He bought land that had once been family farms and
dairies, platted the land and began building the town that would
become Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Hershey and his wife Kitty loved children but had none of their own.
They both felt that money, in and of itself, was not important unless
a person could do good with it for others. They decided to build a
school and provide nurturing homes for orphan boys. The Hershey
Trust was established to serve four orphan boys in the beginning, and
now serves 2000 boys and girls.

Every human has flaws, and Hershey was not perfect. He loved to
live the high life, enjoyed gambling, but was careful to do that in
Europe where the good people of Hershey could not see his excesses.
He could be stubborn, foolish, and argumentative. But his legacy is
positive in many ways. The Hershey Trust has remained strong through
tough economic times. The Hershey schools he founded are exemplary.
Hershey's candy brands remain top sellers in the business. And he
didn't need a government bailout or handout to bring his dream to reality.