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

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Key Phrases: orphans court, chocolate works, school trust, Milton Hershey, New York, Henry Hershey (more...)
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  • This item: Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams by Michael D'Antonio

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keeping his prose blessedly free of "sweet" wordplay, D'Antonio offers a balanced and genial look at the man who brought America the five-cent chocolate bar and founded a utopian village. Milton S. Hershey (1857–1945) was hardly the only Progressive-era tycoon to envision an idyllic company town, but he alone made it work. He set out to create "a self-perpetuating little utopia of capitalism and charity," and that's exactly what Hershey, Pa., was and is. D'Antonio (The State Boys Rebellion, etc.) describes his subject's childhood and early failures, the company's investments and dealings, and the intricacies of candy making. He includes bad stuff on Hershey: the egotism expected of a business mogul, some capricious firings, a tendency toward heavy-handed paternalism and a childless marriage to a woman who, the author concludes, suffered from and died of syphilis. He also explains why Hershey's astonishing generosity toward a school for underprivileged boys resulted in decades of corporate stagnation and, in the last few years, a bitter battle over the company's future. All in all, D'Antonio solidifies his subject's reputation as "a kindly type of industrialist" who brought the nation "happiness in a wrapper." Not a massive social history with grand pretensions—indeed, it's a relief to pick up a corporate titan's biography that weighs less than eight pounds—this volume will satisfy all but the most voracious readers. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School Snack-loving teens may be well disposed toward this entertaining book before opening it, since its subject is the inventor of the first popular and inexpensive milk chocolate bar in the United States. The story of the man's success is one of determination, innovation, and perseverance despite repeated failures, all encompassed in a personality unique among the tycoons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A curious mix of capitalist ruthlessness and utopian idealism, Hershey pursued riches but believed deeply in social responsibility. His devotion to the latter created a legacy that exists to this day in his school for at-risk children and, in Hershey, PA, the charming company town that was one of the few American communities virtually unaffected by the Great Depression. Fascinating details about candy production and Hershey's personal life abound, and the balanced viewpoint, smooth writing, and succinct treatment make this biography a good choice for assignments related to leadership, business, or U.S. social history. Starr E. Smith, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 9, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 074326410X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743264105
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,227 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Michael D'Antonio
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
orphans court, chocolate works, school trust, chocolate company
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Milton Hershey, New York, Henry Hershey, Hershey Foods, High Point, United States, Lebanon Valley, William Murrie, National City, Derry Church, Great Britain, Hershey Chocolate, Aunt Mattie, Lancaster County, John Snyder, Stanley Russell, Oil City, Nine Points, Ruth Hershey Beddoe, Hershey Park, Chocolate Avenue, Harry Lebkicher, Central Hershey, Gilded Age, George Bowman
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Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
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Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams 4.6 out of 5 stars (20)
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Milton Hershey: Young Chocolatier (Childhood of Famous Americans) 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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Chocolate by Hershey: A Story About Milton S. Hershey (A Carolrhoda Creative Minds Book)
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Chocolate by Hershey: A Story About Milton S. Hershey (A Carolrhoda Creative Minds Book) 4.5 out of 5 stars (4)
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The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
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The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars 4.5 out of 5 stars (174)
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48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Well-Written Critical Examination of a Great Man, January 4, 2006
This review is from: Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (Hardcover)
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.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet Success, February 23, 2006
By R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (Hardcover)
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.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars At Last, an unbiased and lively Hershey Biography!, March 8, 2006
This review is from: Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (Hardcover)
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
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Fair and interesting, but not quite specific enough at times
A fair, balanced, sympathetic look at a remarkable man. I found this book, overall, to be very lively and interesting. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Rover

5.0 out of 5 stars Great addition to the literature on Hershey
The life and legacy of Milton Hershey is one of the more intriguing stories in American business and history. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Lehigh History Student

5.0 out of 5 stars very interesting biography
This is a very interesting book about Milton Hershey's life. I read this book around the time the residents of Hershey were upset about the prospect of the candy company being... Read more
Published 14 months ago by C. S. Wilson

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great American Chocolate Book
The only thing I really knew before reading this book is that Hershey chocolate has been around a long time and there is a town themed after it somewhere in Pennsylvania near... Read more
Published 24 months ago by Skye Mackenzie

5.0 out of 5 stars Hershey:, the legend and the man
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... Read more
Published on June 14, 2007 by Bobby Newman

4.0 out of 5 stars As Good as Chocolate
"This book is almost as good as the chocolate bar. This biography of Milton S. Hershey and the chocolate company shows how hard work, ingenuity, and just plain luck produced the... Read more
Published on May 24, 2007 by BookWoman/BookMan TV REVIEWS

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly sweet biography of the chocolate king
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... Read more
Published on April 2, 2007 by Jerry Saperstein

3.0 out of 5 stars Fair and balanced, but not particularly interesting
The book provides a good description of Milton Hershey's life - his early struggles, his later success, the Cuban sugar business, his generosity and the building of the community... Read more
Published on February 7, 2007 by American Bandersnatch

5.0 out of 5 stars The rich biography behind the 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... Read more
Published on October 19, 2006 by Marina

3.0 out of 5 stars A good anechdotal piece of research but poorly placed in an historical context
Michael D'Antonio chose a very interesting person to write a biography on, M.S. Hershey, whose name is quite literally still all over the world. Read more
Published on August 10, 2006 by Shawn S. Sullivan

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