Milton Hershey

Milton Hershey’s family moved often through rural Pennsylvania, interrupting an education that ended after fourth grade. At fourteen, his father placed him with a German-language newspaper, hoping the work would make him a man of letters. Milton hated the job, handled the printing type poorly, and was fired within months. He had little schooling and one failed trade behind him.

His mother, Fanny, looked for a different trade. She believed he should learn to make something useful and listened when he expressed interest in confectionery. In 1872, she arranged an apprenticeship with Joseph Royer’s candy and ice-cream shop in Lancaster. When she learned that Milton was spending his time sweeping and turning ice cream, she offered Royer extra money so someone else could do those jobs and her son could learn to make candy. Milton stayed almost four years, learning how heat, timing, and texture changed a batch.

At eighteen, Milton borrowed $150 from his aunt Mattie and opened a candy shop in Philadelphia. Fanny and Mattie came to help, wrapping candy and working in the shop. The effort lasted six years. Letters preserved by the Hershey Community Archives show Milton repeatedly asking relatives for loans and more time to repay earlier ones. In 1882, the business closed in bankruptcy.

A job with a Denver confectioner taught Milton to make caramels with fresh milk. He tried again in New York in 1883; that business also failed. When he returned to Lancaster three years later, he could not afford to ship his possessions, and most of the family treated him as an irresponsible drifter. Fanny and Mattie helped with production again. They made and wrapped Crystal A caramels with him, using the fresh-milk method he had learned in Denver.

A large order from a British importer and a bank loan finally gave the Lancaster Caramel Company room to grow. Hershey later sold it and concentrated on milk chocolate, building the company that carried his name. Family help did not keep the first two businesses from failing; the Philadelphia shop consumed six years and borrowed money. Across the failures, Fanny’s help stayed close to the work. She changed an apprenticeship that did not fit, made sure the next one taught the central skill, and joined Mattie in doing the ordinary production work each time Milton returned with more knowledge than before.