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Making Chocolate American: Labor, Tourism, and American

Empire in the Hershey Company, 1903–85

Catherine Koonar

The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 142, Number


3, October 2018, pp. 339-364 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press


DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pmh.2018.0032

For additional information about this article


https://muse.jhu.edu/article/708116

Access provided at 29 Mar 2019 19:42 GMT from Reading University (+1 other institution account)
Making Chocolate American:
Labor, Tourism, and American Empire
in the Hershey Company, 1903–85
Abstract: Over the course of the twentieth century, Hershey became
synonymous with chocolate in America. Americans saw the company’s
founder, Milton Hershey, as a great industrial philanthropist, and the town
flourished as a tourist attraction. This article shows how Hershey chocolate
became American, traces the history of the town as a destination, and
explores the way Hershey’s industrial and imperial past has been obfuscated
in favor of a narrative grounded in the brand’s place in American culture
and Mr. Hershey’s personal legacy. Commitment to welfare capitalism, the
desire for Americans to visit the town and the factory, and the Hershey
Company’s intentionally folksy self-promotion worked to establish the
brand as part of American popular culture.

O
ver the course of the twentieth century, Hershey became the
most recognizable chocolate in America. It occupies a significant
place in American holidays and celebrations, and no summer
campfire would be complete without s’mores made with squares of
Hershey’s chocolate. In addition to the cultural ubiquity of Hershey’s
chocolate products, the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a popular desti-
nation for vacationing American families and a point of interest for choc-
olate lovers the world over.
This article shows how Hershey chocolate became American, traces the
history of the town as a destination, and explores the way Hershey’s indus-
trial and imperial past has been obfuscated in favor of a narrative grounded
in the brand’s place in American popular culture and Milton Hershey’s
personal legacy. Two of the main ingredients in milk chocolate—cocoa and
sugar—are largely sourced from tropical countries, but Hershey’s choco-
late has never been seen as exotic. Through the promotion of Hershey as
a “traditional,” picturesque American town as well as a strong emphasis

The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography


Vol. CXLII, No. 3 (October 2018)
340 CATHERINE KOONAR October

on American industrial knowledge, supervision, ingenuity, and milk from


cows raised in Hershey’s own Pennsylvania pastures, once “exotic” ingre-
dients were transformed into familiar ones and celebrated as American.
Through this process of Americanization, Hershey was able to hide its
complicated relationship with early twentieth-century empire and colo-
nialism. The application of American industrial technology fundamentally
changed the status of cocoa and sugar, and—through the growing popu-
larity of Hershey as a tourist destination—Hershey’s chocolate was further
solidified as belonging to the category of Americana as opposed to being a
product of American empire.
By the 1930s, Hershey had become a popular destination, attracting
guests from all over the Northeast. In addition to the usual trappings of
a company town (such as housing, infrastructure, and recreational facili-
ties), Hershey featured a luxury hotel, museum, amusement park, botan-
ical garden, and chocolate factory tours. The continuing expansion of
the town’s tourist infrastructure is unusual among towns with origins in
early twentieth-century welfare capitalism.1 Not only through its rise as
an iconic national brand but also as a result of its popularity as a destina-
tion, Hershey has been able to shed the negative connotations associated
with American industrial capitalism and American empire and instead
ground the company’s history more firmly in American culture, family, and
leisure. The simple joy evoked by the consumption of chocolate—and the
mythologized narrative of Mr. Hershey as benevolent town father rather
than millionaire industrial paternalist—worked to successfully disentangle
the company’s history from issues of early twentieth-century imperialism,
the Great Depression, and labor unrest.
Central to this argument are three key questions. First, how did
Hershey’s chocolate become American? Second, how did Hershey become a

While Hershey’s trajectory is unique, other company towns have become tourist destinations in
1

the postindustrial age. For example, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where Bethlehem Steel operated for
much of the twentieth century, relies on the Sands Casino Resort as well as various seasonal events
to draw visitors; former textile town Lowell, Massachusetts, uses heritage tourism to lure American
tourists; and Kohler, Wisconsin, home of the Kohler Company, uses golf and other outdoor activ-
ities to attract tourists. See Margaret Crawford, Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design of
American Company Towns (London, 1995); Chloe E. Taft, From Steel to Slots: Casino Capitalism in the
Postindustrial City (Cambridge, MA, 2016); “The Christmas City,” Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of
Commerce, accessed Oct. 11, 2017, http://www.bethlehempa.org/visit_christmas.html; “Destination
Kohler,” The American Club Resort, accessed Oct. 11, 2017, http://www.americanclubresort.com/;
Hardy Green, The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American
Economy (New York, 2010).
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 341

destination? Third, how did the emphasis on tourism obfuscate Hershey’s


industrial and imperial past in favor of a narrative grounded in the brand’s
place in American culture and Mr. Hershey’s legacy as an innovator
and a philanthropist? This paper deals with these questions by separat-
ing Hershey’s history into four periods: the early history of the Hershey
Company (1903–20); Hershey’s involvement in Cuba during the height
of American empire and the company’s rise as an iconic national brand
(1921–30); the challenges of the Great Depression, World War II, and
Mr. Hershey’s death (1931–50); and the modernization of tourism and
marketing in Hershey (1951–85).

“The Sweetest Place on Earth”:


The Early History of the Hershey Company, 1903–20

In his early life, Milton Hershey failed as an entrepreneur many times


over, but in the late nineteenth century he perfected his caramel recipe and
began to succeed in business for the first time. By the end of the 1880s, his
Lancaster Caramel Company was hugely successful, and Hershey became
a very wealthy man.2 It was at this point that he became interested in choc-
olate making. In 1893, he traveled to the World’s Columbian Exposition in
Chicago, where he was captivated by a German chocolate maker’s exhibit,
which presented to fairgoers the process of milk chocolate production. Mr.
Hershey bought the entire display and shipped it to Lancaster, where he
began to experiment with chocolate production from inside his caramel
factory.3 He sold the caramel company for one million dollars and focused
exclusively on chocolate. By 1904, the Hershey factory had become one of
the earliest examples of the large-scale industrialization of chocolate and
candy in North America. Soon the smell of chocolate wafted through the
foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Americans began to travel to
Hershey to see the process of industrial chocolate making. By 1916, the
factory was consistently breaking its own visitor records, and special trains
were being chartered to keep up with the demand.4
By 1905, the town featured rows of modern houses, complete with elec-
tricity, indoor plumbing, and central heating. Mr. Hershey had laid out
2
Deborah Cadbury, Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World’s Greatest Chocolate
Makers (New York, 2011), 145.
3
Nicholas Westbrook, “Chocolate at the World’s Fairs, 1851–1964,” in Chocolate: History, Culture,
and Heritage, ed. Louis Grivetti and Howard-Yana Shapiro (Hoboken, NJ, 2009), 204.
4
“3,500 Inspect Hershey Factory,” Harrisburg (PA) Telegraph, Aug. 19, 1916.
342 CATHERINE KOONAR October

over one hundred lots for future sale to employees. Hershey was a planned
company town; as such, there were restrictions on the types of homes peo-
ple were allowed to build. For example, houses were required to have two
stories and pitched roofs, fences required company approval, and residents
were prohibited from running private businesses out of their homes.5
Home ownership was encouraged in Hershey; the company tried to build
a peaceful and orderly community in which self-sufficiency, independence,
and community involvement were emphasized. Ultimately, though, the
town was governed and shaped by the watchful eye of its founder. Company
towns were representative of the goals and ambitions of their industrialist
founders, who were often also interested in social reform. These giants
of turn-of-the-century industry strived to increase productivity, transform
working-class culture, and decrease social conflict through the implemen-
tation of social guidelines that often extended beyond the workplace.6
Hershey was part of the “new company town” movement, which was
heavily influenced by the social ideas of the Progressive Era. These towns
featured more social programs, green space, and company support for
employee home ownership than did their predecessors, but they were still
controlled by management. Most residents did not object to Mr. Hershey’s
brand of paternalism, but the fact that Hershey was a “one-man town” was
not lost on its citizens. One resident, Harold Hamilton, referred to town
housing rules as the “Milton Hershey Codes.”7 It was Mr. Hershey’s town,
and this fact was never far from the minds of residents. Nevertheless, most
residents remembered Hershey as a safe and pleasant place to live—and
this is the way it was advertised.8
During the first three decades of the twentieth century, the impression
of the town as charming and picturesque helped to establish Hershey’s

5
Michael D’Antonio, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian
Dreams (New York, 2006), 116–17; James DeSantis Oral History Interview, 1982, 89OH63, Hershey
Community Archives, Hershey, PA.
6
See, for example, Oliver J. Dinius and Angela Vergara, eds., Company Towns in the Americas:
Landscape, Power, and Working-Class Communities (Athens, GA, 2011), 1; Stephen Meyer III, The
Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921 (Albany,
NY, 1981); Crawford, Building the Workingman’s Paradise; John S. Garner, ed., The Company Town:
Architecture and Society in the Early Industrial Age (New York, 1992).
7
Harold H. Hamilton Oral History Interview, Oct. 19, 1992, 92OH38, Hershey Community
Archives; J. DeSantis OHI.
8
See, for example, Henry Stump Oral History Interview, Mar. 11, 1992, 92OH10, Hershey
Community Archives; Edward C. Tancredi Oral History Interview, Nov. 8, 1991, 91OH27, Hershey
Community Archives; and Jean M. Raneiro Oral History Interview, Oct. 12, 1992, 92OH37, Hershey
Community Archives.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 343

identity as a brand—it was wholesome, healthful, and natural. This


became part of the company’s (albeit minimal) advertising strategy and
ultimately contributed to the brand’s appeal. The national media covered
Mr. Hershey in a way that always emphasized his philanthropic work, the
community’s many amenities, and the beauty of the town while largely
ignoring the kinds of social or cultural issues that existed.
Most notably, in 1909, Mr. Hershey established the Hershey Industrial
School for orphan boys. The school focused on needy boys, many of whom
were from the poor coal regions of Pennsylvania.9 Each of the students
who attended the school had lost at least one parent and came from a
family that was unable to properly care for him. The school stressed such
Progressive ideals as religious education, modesty, hard work, and respon-
sibility. To accomplish these goals, groups of boys lived in farmhouses
surrounding the school. Each house was run by a couple, who acted as
guardians for up to twenty-six boys. House parents were responsible for
making sure the boys milked the cows, got dressed, got to school, had three
meals a day, and received help with any homework.10 While at the Hershey
School, boys learned various trades and crafts (woodworking, printing,
machine shop, plumbing) and performed chores and farm work.11 Early
on, most of the boys spent the majority of their education studying shop-
work, trades, and agriculture; only a few of them took academic courses.
Over time, the school’s focus evolved, and all students eventually took aca-
demic classes.12 Many Hershey School boys felt as though the school was
the only home they had ever had. The Hershey Company employed many
former students, and alumni felt a strong and lasting connection to Mr.
Hershey and to one another.13
Many individuals who grew up in Hershey and stayed there as adults
expressed a deep sense of gratitude to Mr. Hershey, the company, and the
town he built. They remembered the closeness of a small town where they
grew up among friends, and they attributed many of these positive mem-
ories to the town’s founder. The success of the company often insulated
the town from broader challenges facing America, and, in their view, Mr.

9
E. Tancredi OHI.
10
Betty Blachly Oral History Interview, 2006, 2006OH07, Hershey Community Archives; John
A. O’Brien, Semisweet: An Orphan’s Journey Through the School the Hersheys Built (Lanham, MD, 2014).
11
Lawrence E. Davies, “An Orphan School-Home,” New York Times, Nov. 4, 1934.
12
Kenneth Hatt Oral History Interview, Oct. 27, 1989, 89OH17, Hershey Community Archives.
13
“Harrisburg Chamber of Commerce Dinner to Honor M. S. Hershey,” Feb. 17, 1936, 97004,
box 7, folder 9, Hershey Community Archives.
344 CATHERINE KOONAR October

Hershey “made sure that everything people needed was always there.”14
Following the death of his wife in 1915, the heirless Mr. Hershey began
the process of transferring his entire personal fortune, thousands of acres of
productive farmland, and control of his chocolate company to the Hershey
Industrial School.15 Since 1919, this fortune has been controlled and
administered by the Hershey Trust Company, whose duty it is to ensure
that Hershey School students are taken care of, that all school programs
are funded, and that future expansion plans remain possible. Observers
praised Mr. Hershey for endowing the school with his personal fortune
and giving the Hershey Trust control of the company. The national media
described him as something of a hero for (or a savior of ) America’s poor
children. This coverage brought increased national attention to both the
town itself and the man who built it.16 The school has become an enduring
symbol of its founder’s idealism, his commitment to charity, and his desire
to provide for “his boys.” When he died in 1945, he left this legacy. The
connection between the company, the town, and the school is part of what
has made the Hershey Company, its history, its citizens, and its place in
American culture special to those who lived, worked, and vacationed in the
region. It is also part of what shielded the company from criticism with
regard to labor relations and imperial aspirations.
From its inception, the Hershey Company benefited from steady
national population growth and an increase in the popularity of mass-
produced food products, which provided an important market for choco-
late products. In the early twentieth century, brands including Campbell’s
and Heinz gained strength based on advertising and promotion.17
Hershey, however, entrenched itself in American culture through the early
twentieth-century solidification of the town as a popular tourist destina-
tion and the reputation of Mr. Hershey as kind, generous, and compas-
sionate. Both the act of eating and the experiences of travel and leisure
connected Americans to Hershey—the town, the man, and the company.

Kathleen Cassady Oral History Interview, 1991, 91OH25, Hershey Community Archives.
14

“M. S. Hershey Gives $60,000,000 Trust for an Orphanage,” New York Times, Nov. 9, 1923.
15
16
See, for example, James C. Young, “Hershey, Unique Philanthropist: His Magnificent Gift to
Orphan Boys a Long Cherished Idea,” New York Times, Nov. 18, 1923; “Hershey Is Modest about Great
Gift,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 1923; “M. S. Hershey Gives $60,000,000 Trust for an Orphanage”;
and “$60,000,000 Gift for Orphanage,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 9, 1923.
17
See Katherine J. Parkin, Food Is Love: Food Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America
(Philadelphia, 2006); Nancy F. Koehn, “Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth
Century,” Business History Review 73 (1999): 349–93; and Gabriella M. Petrick, “‘Purity as Life’: H.
J. Heinz, Religious Sentiment, and the Beginning of the Industrial Diet,” History and Technology 27
(2011): 37–64.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 345

Mr. Hershey had always envisioned his namesake town as a “wonder


of the industrial world” and aimed to establish it as a destination that
would draw visitors from nearby towns and cities and around the world.18
The smell of chocolate in the air and the opportunity to witness the pro-
cess of large-scale industrial chocolate making was often what drew vis-
itors to rural Pennsylvania, but Mr. Hershey wanted visitors to experi-
ence more than the chocolate factory alone. Less than ten years after the
foundation of the town, Hersheypark had become a popular destination
for couples and families, who arrived by the trainful to spend summer
afternoons picnicking, boating, and listening to live music. Harry Gardner,
a Hershey resident, recalled that three or four trains from such cities as
Philadelphia and Reading brought visitors to Hersheypark every week-
end. Visitors enjoyed a day of leisure in the park; in the evening, the trains
whistled and people loaded back up into the cars and traveled home.19 In
1909, the Reading Eagle reported that Mr. Hershey was already planning
“great improvements for the future,” including a zoo and a horticultural
building.20 As the twentieth century progressed, Hershey grew into a bona
fide tourist destination associated with both chocolate making and family
leisure time.

Making Chocolate American:


The Hershey Company and American Empire, 1921–30

Hershey was the first chocolate to be mass-produced in the United


States, and the company defined the way chocolate tasted for the American
palate. More importantly, Hershey defined what chocolate looked like: it
was a bar wrapped in brown and silver packaging, made in Pennsylvania.
However, two of the main ingredients in milk chocolate—cocoa and
sugar—are largely sourced from tropical countries. The process by which
these “exotic” raw materials were transformed into American chocolate is
bound up in issues of race and empire. In 1926, the company published
an informational pamphlet outlining how its chocolate and cocoa were
18
“Hershey’s Guiding Principles,” 1948, box 10, folder 11, Paul Wallace Research Collection
(Collection 97004), Hershey Community Archives.
19
Harry Gardner Oral History Interview, June 30, 1887, 2014OH22, Hershey Community
Archives.
20
“The New Town of Hershey and Its Founder: A Multi-Millionaire’s Numerous Projects—
Narrow Gauge Railroad and Non-Sectarian Orphanage Are the Latest—Great Rise From an Humble
Beginning,” Reading (PA) Eagle, Oct. 8, 1909, box 5, folder 30, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
346 CATHERINE KOONAR October

made. The pamphlet describes how milk, cocoa beans, and sugar made
their way to the Pennsylvania factory and how they were combined to
produce Hershey’s sweet milk chocolate.21 “The Story of Chocolate and
Cocoa” states that “the world owes its first knowledge of chocolate” to
Columbus and Cortés, who, based on the commercial importance of cacao
and its role as a status symbol in Central America, introduced the prod-
uct to Spain, from which it spread to the rest of Europe and the wider
Western world.22 The publication ignores indigenous knowledge and
control of cacao cultivation and trade in favor of a narrative that empha-
sizes European knowledge (later appropriated by Milton Hershey) and
contrasts “primitive” and “modern” methods of harvesting, drying, and
processing cacao beans.23 Hershey proudly claimed that it had “possessed
itself of an intimate knowledge of the cacao bean crops in every country
and deals with their importation to the factory with the same attention to
quality and purity that characterizes its Pennsylvania milk production.”24
In its discussion of sugar production, the pamphlet also stressed Mr.
Hershey’s self-described discerning eye for quality. Beginning in 1917,
Hershey’s sugar supply was sourced from the company’s own plantations
in Cuba. The company deemphasized the tropical nature of cane sugar and
instead highlighted the beauty of Hershey’s Cuban town and the modern
technology used to process its sugar. This focus served to obscure sugar’s
“exotic” nature and to erase the image of the nonwhite labor used to pro-
duce it.25 Many Americans believed that cane sugar was incompatible with
the constitution of white Americans; thus, the more distance that could be
put between Hershey’s chocolate and tropical sugar, the better.26 Hershey’s
sugar was further naturalized through the company’s insistence that the

21
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa: With a Brief Description of Hershey, ‘the Chocolate
and Cocoa Town’ and Hershey, ‘the Sugar Town,’” 1926, Collection 89.451, Published Collections
Department, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE. Visitors received this booklet at the end
of Hershey factory tours to answer any questions about the sourcing of raw materials.
22
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa,” 11. The terms cacao or cocoa bean both refer to the raw
material used to make chocolate and cocoa. The beans undergo a process of fermentation, deshell-
ing, roasting, grinding, and pressing before they are ultimately turned into chocolate and cocoa and
consumed.
23
For a history of cacao in the Americas and Europe, see Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane
Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY, 2008).
24
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa,” 19.
25
April Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization: American Empire and the Cultural Politics of Sweetness
(Chapel Hill, NC, 2015).
26
In the early twentieth century, American anxiety around race, class, and diet were connected.
The discourse around food and race suggested different races were suited for different foods. Many
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 347

quality of its product was monitored as carefully as that of the milk that
was delivered to the Pennsylvania factory each day.
The Hershey Company used both the perceived purity of milk and the
supposed superiority of American knowledge and technology to obscure
the tropical origins of its products and establish them instead as unques-
tionably American. In the early twentieth century, Progressives touted milk
as an important source of protein, fat, minerals, and calories. Though milk,
they argued, was a naturally balanced food, the industrialization of food
production further enhanced its nutritional value.27 Further, as Melanie
Dupuis has shown, beginning in the 1880s advertisements represented
milk as necessary for “good mothering,” and, over time, women came to
consider milk and milk products as necessary to the health of their chil-
dren.28 When cocoa beans arrived at the Hershey factory, the company’s
pamphlet boasted, they were met with a “battery of modern machinery”
and “creamy milk” from “grass-fed” Holstein cows raised in “Hershey-
inspected herds.”29 This process transformed the beans into Hershey’s
milk chocolate and cocoa.30 The sugar, which arrived in Pennsylvania from
Hershey plantations in Cuba, was “ground to an almost impalpable snow-
white powder” and combined with fresh milk.31 The description of the milk
as wholesome and pure and the use of the term “snow white” to refer to
the sugar represented an attempt to Americanize chocolate and cocoa and
to assuage the anxiety of white Americans who worried about consuming
foods that were viewed as only being suitable for nonwhite peoples. The
fact that sugar was further refined in Pennsylvania added additional dis-

Americans believed that beet sugar was more appropriate for European and North American con-
sumption than tropical cane sugar and that heavily refined sugar was more digestible for white bodies.
The Hershey Company imported sugar from its Cuban plantations, so it emphasized the fact that the
company owned and operated the Cuban enterprises, and it highlighted the sophistication of its refin-
ing process as a way of showing Americans that Hershey products were healthy, delicious, and suitable
for consumption. These ideas subsided later in the 1920s as more scientific knowledge about food
entered the mainstream. For more on race, class, labor, and diet, see Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Unequal
Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor (Cambridge, MA, 2002); Helen
Zoe Veit, Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the
Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC, 2013); and Merleaux.
27
E. Melanie DuPuis, Nature’s Perfect Food: How Milk Became America’s Drink (New York, 2002);
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa.”
28
Dupuis, 104.
29
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa.” While the Holstein is a European breed of cattle,
Americans were familiar with it and certainly would not have viewed it as foreign or exotic.
30
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa,” 19.
31
“The Story of Chocolate and Cocoa,” 21.
348 CATHERINE KOONAR October

tance between the tropics and the consumption of the finished product. In
this description of the process of making Hershey’s chocolate and cocoa,
locally produced milk was arguably the most important part. When mixed
with natural, pure, and native milk, cacao and sugar combined to create
something familiar and wholesome. Thus, the consumption of Hershey’s
chocolate was constructed not as a culinary adventure or as an act of tour-
ing the tropics through “exotic” ingredients and flavors. It was an innately
American experience created using American knowledge, ingenuity, and,
most importantly, fresh milk from cows that were raised in Hershey’s own
Pennsylvania pastures.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States
gradually increased its control and influence in the Caribbean. Following
the Spanish-American War, American power became more overt. For
over three decades, the United States used the Platt Amendment to
establish and expand political and economic hegemony in Cuba. Driving
out European influence by replacing this overseas capital with American
investment was crucial. Between 1902 and 1924, both American sugar
companies and food companies for which sugar was important purchased
and leased Cuban land and sugar mills.32 By the mid-1920s, American
sugar interests and such companies as Hershey had supplanted much of
the Cuban mill-owning class, proletarianized large segments of the rural
agricultural population, and imported tens of thousands of West Indian
workers during labor shortages.33 The Platt Amendment maintained
political stability and granted the United States the right to intervene in
Cuban affairs, and it allowed the United States to step in if the capital
investment of American companies was ever in jeopardy as a result of
political instability or leadership changes. The protection offered by the
Platt Amendment and the Reciprocity Treaty created the atmosphere that
allowed the Hershey Company to profit from the production and exporta-
tion of Cuban sugar for three decades.
By the early twentieth century, sugar was a modern necessity in the
United States and, of course, a primary ingredient in milk chocolate. Thus,
the establishment of Hershey sugar plantations in Cuba grew out of an
essential need. By 1916, the First World War had affected the production

32
Jules Robert Benjamin, The United States and Cuba: Hegemony and Dependent Development,
1880–1934 (Pittsburgh, 1977), 15–19.
33
Thomas R. Winpenny, “Milton S. Hershey Ventures into Cuban Sugar,” Pennsylvania History
62 (1995): 491–502.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 349

and exportation of European beet sugar, and Hershey looked for a consis-
tent and inexpensive source. Securing a reliable sugar supply was the pri-
mary objective, but Hershey’s experience in Cuba also expressed the com-
pany’s paternalistic and imperialist vision. Greg Grandin has argued that
Ford’s Brazilian rubber town was born out of a desire to salvage a vision
of America that was slipping away at home.34 There is little evidence to
suggest that Mr. Hershey was similarly disillusioned by American culture
and politics; he appears to have been motivated by the promise of cheap
Cuban land and access to American markets. However, the same hubris
that caused Ford to believe that he could recreate some lost American
ideal in the Amazon spurred Milton Hershey to build a carbon copy of his
Pennsylvania town in Cuba.
Ideas about race, empire, and labor were central to the way that the
Hershey Company approached its business in Cuba. In 1916, when Mr.
Hershey first went to Cuba, there were only a handful of American-owned
sugar mills in the Santa Cruz region. The Hershey Company acquired
thousands of acres of land and established mills at Rosario, San Antonio,
and Central Hershey, which became its most important Cuban holding.
The company began by importing laborers from Louisiana, but, shortly
after it established plantations and mills, the Cuban government passed a
law that required Hershey to hire more Cuban workers.35 The company’s
initial strategy of importing American workers to Cuba was an attempt to
avoid using Caribbean laborers in the production of sugar. Hershey sought
to minimize its tropical associations by using American labor to plant,
harvest, and process the sugarcane. In addition, some American lawmak-
ers from sugar-producing states were concerned about the importation of
Caribbean sugar and the effect it may have had on American farms and
farm workers.36 Hershey Cuba employee J. J. Woolf recalled that following
this legislation, “every time you fired an American [or they left the job] you
had to hire a Cuban.”37 Woolf attributed Mr. Hershey’s success in Cuba to
the fact that he “made friends” with his workers, but Mr. Hershey main-
tained a paternalistic attitude toward his Cuban employees. According to

34
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (New York,
2009).
35
Wallace Interview with J. J. Woolf, 1957, box 9, folder 32, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
36
Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization. Of course, this concern ignored the fact that many of those
who worked on US sugar beet farms were migrant laborers from Mexico.
37
Wallace Interview with J. J. Woolf.
350 CATHERINE KOONAR October

Woolf, “you can get out of a Cuban the most loyal service in the world if
you treat him as an equal, but never let him be above you in any way, that
is, never let him get the best of you.”38 “If you know how to handle them,”
Woolf continued, “they will go to any end for you. But if you don’t, it is
like trying to drive a Georgia mule.”39 The imperialist, civilizing mission
and American notions of racial and cultural superiority were central to
the management of Hershey’s Cuban enterprise. The company’s ultimate
goal in Cuba was to secure cheap raw materials using the labor of a largely
powerless workforce.
As part of the company’s effort to create a loyal and obedient Cuban
labor force, it tried to replicate features of the Pennsylvania town. For exam-
ple, Mr. Hershey established a school in Hershey Cuba that also served
orphan children. The school was primarily interested in industrial educa-
tion; students were taught to raise sugarcane and operate the machinery in
Hershey mills.40 Boys were admitted to the school, where they were trained
for agricultural jobs, when they were between ten and twelve years old.
The first students at Hershey’s school in Rosario were about fifty boys who
had been made orphans following a railroad accident.41 Antonio Espinosa,
whose father was a teacher at the school, recalled that Mr. Hershey visited
every time he came to Cuba and that he was “very fond of [the school].”42
Ultimately, the Cuban school was unsuccessful. John G. Snavely, a
Hershey executive, noted that “if [Mr. Hershey] had got any cooperation
from the Cuban people, he would have given them the same school he
had [in Pennsylvania].”43 Politicians and corporate interests in the United
States believed that American institutions could be easily transplanted and
accepted in the Caribbean and that, if they failed, it was because the local
population did not embrace them wholeheartedly. Snavely implied that
education was not important to Cubans—that Mr. Hershey was earnestly
trying to better their lives and their community but that Cuban workers
and officials refused to cooperate. In a typically imperialist manner, Mr.

Wallace Interview with J. J. Woolf.


38

Wallace Interview with J. J. Woolf.


39

40
Interview with J. G. Salinas, 1975, box 9, folder 30, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
41
Interview with Antonio Espinosa, 1957, box 9, folder 32, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
42
Interview with Antonio Espinosa.
43
Interview with John G. Snavely, 1954, 1956, box 4, folder 15, Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 351

Hershey built his Cuban town to reflect what he viewed as traditional


American values, maintained complete control over its residents, and used
the school to train children who would later become field workers, mill
workers, and clerks in his sugar outfit.
The Hershey Company’s vision of a docile and powerless workforce
was part of an American imperialist fantasy, and workers across Cuba
reacted to what they viewed as unfair and exploitative labor conditions. By
the late 1910s, unionization had expanded significantly in Cuba; strikes,
work stoppages, and boycotts were evidence of the growing power of
Cuban trade unionism. Throughout January and February of 1919, there
was always a strike somewhere in Cuba. The railroad and sugar industries
were particularly vulnerable. During this period, US capital viewed labor
developments with great concern because railroad and shipping strikes
had the power to immediately paralyze all of Cuba’s exports. The growing
power of labor unions in Cuba threatened the assumptions under which
foreign capital operated on the island and set the stage for a confrontation
between Cuban workers and US business.44
By the mid-1920s, anti-American sentiment was growing all over Latin
America and the Caribbean. The United States used the Platt Amendment
to justify intervention in Cuban politics, where nationalist leaders were
gaining ground. In the 1924 presidential election, the United States sup-
ported Gerardo Machado. Machado supported Cuban sovereignty, but
he was also friendly to foreign capital and largely anti-labor. During his
first term as president, he was confronted with a wave of strikes in the
sugar and railroad industries. In an effort to fight the militancy of Cuban
labor activists, Machado worked with the US State Department and the
American Federation of Labor (AFL) to organize a pro-government
union, but when this and similar actions failed, he relied on military
force, violence, and the deportation of foreign labor leaders. In 1926 the
Machado regime ordered a military intervention that killed forty sugar
workers and labor organizers.45
The Hershey Company experienced the most labor trouble in 1926.
In April of that year, the Cuban Railway Brotherhood (CRB) accused the
company of denying its workers “the advantages of their national organi-
zation” by attempting to crush the railway union.46 The CRB appealed to
44
Louis A. Pérez, Cuba under the Platt Amendment, 1902–1934 (Pittsburgh, 1986), 153–54.
45
Pérez, 253–64.
46
“Will Not Submit to Direction from Labor Union Delegates,” Havana Evening News, Jan. 19,
1926, box 6, folder 17, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives; “Hershey Electric
352 CATHERINE KOONAR October

the Pan-American Federation of Labor to denounce Hershey’s actions. It


argued that Hershey was trying to implement American-style company
unions, which gave labor significantly less power to negotiate or stand
up to the power of US capital. Cuban workers viewed them as “intol-
erable.”47 Unsurprisingly for an American industrialist, Mr. Hershey was
not sympathetic to the demands of Cuban workers. The company tried to
keep the CRB out of its projects and vowed to “retire all [its] interests in
Cuba before submitting to labor unions.”48 This was consistent with Mr.
Hershey’s treatment of unions and labor organization in Pennsylvania. He
felt that he paid his workers enough and had given them a beautiful place
to live and work. That, he believed, should ensure their happiness and
loyalty.
In 1933, at the end of his second term as president, Machado hon-
ored Mr. Hershey with the Grand Cross of the National Order of Carlos
Manuel de Céspedes. At the ceremony, Machado praised Milton Hershey
for having “presented to the world a truly admirable organization on Cuban
soil.”49 In the same year, daily wages for agricultural field workers had fallen
to twenty-five cents or less for a twelve-hour day. This was the lowest rate
since emancipation in 1886; many workers sold their labor simply for food
and board, and even skilled workers lived in poverty. These extremely dif-
ficult times prompted the Cuban National Workers Federation (CNOC)
to organize sugar workers in a massive strike during the 1933 sugar har-
vest.50 Strikes broke out all over the island, and Hershey’s interests were no
exception. Wage cuts at Hershey plantations and mills prompted workers’
actions at Hershey’s Rosario and San Antonio mills.51 Cuba represented
an important source of sugar for the company, but until Hershey sold
its interests to Cuban Atlantic in 1946, it was also a constant source of
uncertainty.
In the 1950s, the Hershey Company hired author Paul Wallace to
write a biography of Milton Hershey. As part of his research, he traveled

Railroad Tie-Up Theatre,” Havana Post, Apr. 26, 1926, box 6, folder 17, Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives; “Hershey Rail Trouble Taken to Washington,” Havana Post, Mar. 16,
1926.
47
“Hershey Rail Trouble Taken to Washington.”
48
“Will Not Submit to Direction from Labor Union Delegates.”
49
“Milton Hershey Receives Honor of Cuban Cross,” Feb. 1, 1933, box 7, folder 4, Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
50
Benjamin, The United States and Cuba, 99.
51
P. A. Staples to Milton Hershey, 1934, box 7, folder 5, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 353

to Hershey’s former Cuban possessions and conducted interviews. At


the time of Wallace’s visit, Hershey’s interests in Cuba had already been
sold, but the town of Central Hershey still existed, and many people who
had been Hershey employees still lived and worked in the area. Wallace
described the town as being “safe,” “beautiful,” and “well kept.” He noted
that “race relations seem to be perfect . . . the people are friendly . . . the
sugar is delicious,” and “the air is wonderful.”52 This was how Americans
commonly remembered the now-abandoned Central Hershey—if they
knew it existed at all.
The Hershey Company produced a narrative of its experience in Cuba
that likened the town to its “sister city” in Pennsylvania and framed the
endeavor as one of benevolence. By connecting it to the Pennsylvania town
in this way, the experience of Hershey Cuba remained outside the larger
history of American imperial expansion with regard to both industrial
capitalism and the ideological civilizing mission. American businessmen
and politicians believed not only that American institutions could be sim-
ply and easily transplanted to other areas of the world but also that they
would be welcomed with genuine enthusiasm and gratitude. This belief
was deeply flawed.

“Civil War in Hersheytown”:


Depression, War, and the Death of Milton Hershey, 1931–50

In the 1930s, the Hershey Company provided factory guides with


instructions on how to conduct tours, treat visitors, and answer potential
questions. The question and answer script contained facts not only about
the plant, its workers, and the chocolate making process but also on the
Milton Hershey School, life in the town, and personal information about
its founder.53 Visitors were interested in chocolate production, but they
were also intrigued by Milton Hershey’s reputation and his utopian exper-
iment underway in central Pennsylvania.
Factory guides learned how to answer questions about how much work-
ers were paid and whether there had been reductions in the workforce or
workers’ hours as a result of economic downturn. Guides were instructed

52
Paul Wallace, “Personal Observations of Hershey Cuba,” 1957, box 9, folder 27, Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
53
“Instructions to Guides,” 1934, box 10, folder 11, Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Community Archives.
354 CATHERINE KOONAR October

to inform visitors that everyone was working, no one had been laid off,
and there had been no reduction in wages.54 The chocolate industry did
not suffer the way many businesses did during the 1930s; because Hershey
dominated the market, it remained profitable. Chocolate sales did sag
during the Depression, but the low cost of raw materials and two decades
of vertical integration protected against the effects of economic decline.55
Steady supplies of Hershey-produced milk and sugar enabled the company
to further insulate itself. However, American sugar refiners were pushing
for higher tariffs on foreign sugar producers, and politicians from beet
sugar–producing states complained that American farmers were unable
to compete with cheap sugar from the Caribbean, South America, and
the Pacific.56 Despite these obstacles and the uncertainty surrounding the
future of the company’s Cuban operations, Hershey, Pennsylvania, never
felt the effects of the Depression as acutely as other areas of the country.
Even Hershey residents, some of whom were resentful of Mr. Hershey’s
paternalism and did not feel that they were “being taken care of ” as work-
ers, credited him with helping the town survive the Depression. Harold
Hamilton, for example, recalled, “It was bad, but not near as bad, because
he found work [for people] and he paid them.”57 Even when hours were
reduced, almost everyone in Hershey was working, and they “learned
how to exist on that.”58 Another resident, Joe Skinner, saw Hershey’s
Depression-era construction boom somewhat differently. As a result of the
difficult financial times, Mr. Hershey was able to hire master carpenters
and other craftsmen for fifty cents an hour or less. Skinner acknowledged
that Mr. Hershey did “create a lot of work and keep people from starving,”
but he was hesitant to describe Hershey’s actions as philanthropic.59 To
Skinner, Milton Hershey’s investment in infrastructure during the 1930s
was opportunistic. Much of the construction focused on the town’s tourist
infrastructure. The luxurious Hotel Hershey opened in 1933.60
The Depression was particularly difficult for Hershey’s Italian popula-
tion, many of whom had been drawn to Swatara Station outside Hershey

54
“Instructions to Guides.”
55
D’Antonio, Hershey, 196–97; “Philanthropy Gets Hershey Millions,” New York Times, Apr. 8,
1937.
Merleaux, Sugar and Civilization.
56

Hamilton OHI.
57

58
Hamilton OHI.
59
Joe Skinner Oral History Interview, 1982, 89OH69, Hershey Community Archives.
60
“New Hotel Hershey Brochure,” ca. 1934, box 11, folder 24, Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 355

by labor recruiters. Discrimination made it especially difficult for Italians


to find work in the Hershey factory. Most labored in the quarry, which for-
mer resident Richard Evans described as a “hobo jungle” during the 1930s,
when unemployment was at its height.61 During labor shortages caused by
the Second World War, some Italians were able to move out of the quarry
and into coveted factory jobs, but they still faced workplace discrimination,
and the presence of Italian workers in the chocolate factory resulted in con-
flict between ethnic groups.62 James DeSantis, a factory worker, recalled
that other workers often treated Italians with disrespect, subjecting them
to such racial slurs as “wop” and “garlic snapper,” and that there was very
little intermarriage in the community.63 In the plant, Italian workers found
management particularly oppressive. They worked the hardest and dirtiest
jobs, and their salaries were the lowest of all employees.64
While most workers were happy to have a job, particularly during the
Depression, employees of all backgrounds felt they were overworked and
underpaid. Many complained about the near unilateral control of fore-
men, arguing that the most demanding tasks were given to workers who
were not liked by their superiors. One female employee recalled, “you
were always watched every minute, as if you were going to walk away with
something,” making it hard for workers to feel trusted and valued.65 Mr.
Hershey was also known for walking through the plant and simply firing
people he viewed as “slackers” without knowing the circumstances or the
employee’s history.66 This behavior was especially problematic for workers

61
Richard Evans Oral History Interview, June 15, 2000, 2000OH06, Hershey Community
Archives; Millie Landis Oral History Interview, May 28, 1990, 89OH31, Hershey Community
Archives.
62
Hershey was (and remains) a fairly homogenous town. The majority of its residents were
descended from Pennsylvania Dutch or British stock. Italians, as a result of large-scale migration in
the early twentieth century, became a sizeable ethnic minority in Hershey. Their language and the fact
that they were Catholic rather than Protestant made integration difficult at first. For more on Italian
migration in this period, see Donna Gabaccia, Militants and Migrants: Rural Sicilians Become American
Workers (New Brunswick, NJ, 1988).
63
Evans OHI; Hamilton OHI; DeSantis OHI.
64
Carol Quirke, Eyes on Labor: News Photography and America’s Working Class (New York, 2012),
121. There was very little racial diversity in Hershey. There may have been one black family living in
Hershey, but conflict between the newer Italian families and older residents of British and German
descent was certainly front of mind for many workers and residents. This was amplified during the
Depression, when work was harder to come by.
65
Samuel Tancredi Oral History Interview, July 30, 1990, 90OH18, Hershey Community
Archives; Alda Walenkiewicz Oral History Interview, Nov. 15, 1989, 89OH26, Hershey Community
Archives.
66
S. Tancredi OHI.
356 CATHERINE KOONAR October

during the Depression because losing a job with the Hershey Company
made it extremely difficult to find other employment in the region.
In addition to their concerns about factory work itself, some employees
also complained about daily life in Hershey. They felt that goods at the
Hershey store were too costly, complained that they did not have enough
leisure time to enjoy the town’s amenities, and claimed that, even if they
were given time off, they could not afford the fees to use such facilities as the
Hershey Community Club.67 Some workers complained that Mr. Hershey,
whose attention was on the school and building the town’s reputation as
a tourist destination rather than on the needs of factory workers, had for-
gotten them. Combined with the broad economic and social issues of the
1930s, this local dissatisfaction fostered discontent in Hershey. In early
1937, some workers began to discuss unionization. There had been some
earlier attempts to organize Hershey workers, but the situation was much
different during the Depression. Stories about labor action and unioniza-
tion were prominent in local and national newspapers and magazines, and
there was a growing interest in unionization among Hershey chocolate
workers.68 This gave the newly formed United Chocolate Workers union
(UCW), which claimed to represent 1,700 of the 2,500 Hershey choco-
late workers, an opportunity to coordinate with the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO), which had been gaining power across the country.69
A coordinated sit-down strike, during which UCW members occupied
the plant in shifts of 400, began on April 2, 1937.70 Hershey management
and loyal residents attempted to foster resentment between the unionists
and the larger community, deploying slogans including “Sit Down Strike
is a Strike Against Orphan Boys.” Some managers blamed the strike on
foreign influences in the plant, namely Italian workers.71
Despite strong pro-union sentiment among many workers, in the
wider community those who were loyal to Mr. Hershey outnumbered the
strikers. Ann Dusman, who lived in Hershey at the time, remembered

Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 121.


67

Quirke, 122. For more on the rise of the CIO, see, for example, Art Preis, Labor’s Giant Step:
68

Twenty Years of the CIO (New York, 1972); Jonathan Cutler, Labor’s Time: Shorter Hours, the UAW,
and the Struggle for American Unionism (Philadelphia, 2004); Robert H. Zieger and Gilbert J. Gall,
American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century (Baltimore, 2002); and Robert H. Zieger,
The CIO, 1935–1955 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1995).
69
Robert S. Bird, “CIO Strike Ends at Hershey Plant,” New York Times, Apr. 13, 1937.
70
Robert E. Weir, “Dark Chocolate: Lessons from the 1937 Hershey Sit-down Strike,” Labor
History 56 (2015): 42.
71
S. Tancredi OHI; Quirke, Eyes on Labor.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 357

her father saying that “it was terrible that they were striking against Mr.
Hershey.”72 Rachel Schantz, another resident, described the striking work-
ers as “stubborn, ugly, and destructive.”73 Letters and telegrams support-
ing Hershey against the strikers also poured in during the labor conflict.
Former Hershey residents, past students at the Industrial School, and town
visitors all threw their support behind Mr. Hershey. Supporters often con-
flated the company and Mr. Hershey himself. They saw objections to the
way the factory was being run, complaints about supervisors, and demands
for wage increases and union representation as direct attacks against the
town’s founder. Ardent supporters also resented this deviation from their
image of the town as a peaceful place that was removed from the pain of
the Depression and the labor struggles that had affected other industries.
The conflict came to a head when loyal workers and about four thou-
sand local dairy farmers, whose livelihoods were being threatened by
the factory shutdown, demonstrated their devotion to Mr. Hershey and
his company by arming themselves with clubs and pitchforks and vio-
lently removing the strikers from the factory.74 The company officially
quashed the strike on April 7, 1947. It established a company union, the
Independent Chocolate Workers (ICW, also known as the Loyal Workers
Club), to challenge the UCW and CIO for the right to represent workers
in all collective bargaining. The ICW argued that the CIO threatened
“peace and security.”75 As part of the agreement that ended the strike at
the Hershey plant, a National Labor Relations Board–supervised election
was held in which all Hershey employees could vote on CIO affiliation.
Ultimately, the vote was nearly two to one against the CIO. This refer-
endum on the CIO in Hershey left the plant divided between those who
wanted outside representation and those who were “loyal” to the com-
pany.76 When the vote count was announced, Russel Behman, president
of the United Chocolate Workers of America, vowed “not [to] give up our
fight to organize the employees of the Hershey Chocolate Corporation

72
Ann Dusman Oral History Interview, July 23, 1996, 96OH11, Hershey Community Archives.
73
Rachel Schantz Oral History Interview, Sept. 5, 2000, 2000OH11, Hershey Community
Archives.
74
Bernard G. and H. Elizabeth Ganse Oral History Interview, Aug. 19, 2003, 2003OH09,
Hershey Community Archives; Robert S. Bird, “CIO Ends Strike at Hershey Plant,” New York Times,
Apr. 13, 1937.
75
Quirke, Eyes on Labor, 125; John R. Zoll Interview, Mar. 22, 1955, box 7, folder 12, Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
76
Bird, “CIO Ends Strike at Hershey Plant”; “Hershey Workers Vote Down CIO Union as
Collective Bargaining Agency by 2 to 1,” New York Times, Apr. 24, 1937.
358 CATHERINE KOONAR October

as members of the United Chocolate Workers of America.”77 Following


this decision, the CIO (on behalf of the UCW) accused the Hershey
Company of workplace discrimination toward members of the UCW. In
the two months following the strike, CIO members alleged ten instances
of discrimination.78 The UCW continued to argue that, without legitimate
representation, Hershey workers would never have enough power to effect
the kind of change they felt was necessary in the company.79
The Hershey Company, Hershey loyalists, and most of the local and
national media painted strikers as “un-American” and linked them to com-
munism, foreign influences, and violence. Opponents portrayed the CIO
as an intruder that had shattered Mr. Hershey’s utopian vision and turned
his employees into ungrateful workers. Organizations like the National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM) worked tirelessly to paint unions as
fundamentally un-American. This effort included publications like Mill
and Factory, which ran a piece about how foreign elements and “radical”
and “ungrateful” workers in Hershey had tried to destroy the “industrial
utopia” that Milton Hershey had built. In May 1937, Mill and Factory
published a story called “Civil War in Hersheytown,” which invoked Mr.
Hershey’s benevolent character and the town’s peaceful, happy reputation
to question the motivations of the strikers. The article contrasted the “dingy
mill towns of the textile industry and the soot and rust bitten towns of the
steel industry” with the picturesque, sweet-smelling model town neatly
tucked in the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania to make the argument
that Hershey workers should be grateful for what the company’s founder
had given to them. The article argued that, rather than trying to disrupt
Mr. Hershey’s vision, they should work to fulfill it.80 The article devoted
most of its content to descriptions of the town’s amenities, the CIO’s (in its
view) unnecessary intervention into the plant, and photographs of clean,
organized, and well-lit workspaces in the chocolate factory. The author
included images of people enjoying summer days at Hersheypark, relaxing
by the swimming hole, and dining in Hotel Hershey to support his argu-
ment that Hershey was a bastion of peace and serenity and that its workers

“Hershey Workers Vote Down CIO Union as Collective Bargaining Agency by 2 to 1.”
77

Board’s Exhibits 1, 2, 3 in Case No. IV-C-242, Apr. 23, 1938, Box 1199, RG 25, National
78

Archives and Record Administration, College Park, MD.


79
“CIO Accuses Hershey: Charges of Discrimination Are Filed with the NLRB,” New York Times,
June 22, 1937.
80
Hartley W. Barclay, “Civil War in Hersheytown,” Mill and Factory, May 1937, box 7, folder 12,
Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 359

should be thankful for the privilege of living and working there. The wider
media coverage of the Hershey strike similarly emphasized the fact that
Hershey did not look like an industrial town. The national media described
Hershey in the same way that the company promoted itself, and it rarely
covered the workers’ demands with any depth of analysis.81 Hershey’s pop-
ularity as a destination associated with much more than just chocolate
production was central to the company’s (and the media’s) ability to frame
the issue in this way. By the late 1930s, the Hershey brand was beloved
by American consumers, the town was a popular destination for relax-
ation and leisure, and Mr. Hershey was respected as a great industrialist
and philanthropist. This affection allowed the company and its supporters
to portray unionists as greedy and ungrateful and labor organization as
unnecessary and ultimately incompatible with Mr. Hershey’s vision.
In the late 1930s, Hershey had to confront issues that it had, until the
sit-down strike, been able to ignore. Labor conflict may have poked some
holes in Hershey’s utopian image, but it continued to be America’s candy
bar, and Mr. Hershey was still the “king of chocolate.” The important role
the company played in the war effort further solidified its largely positive
public image. The Ration D Bar, developed in concert with the US gov-
ernment during World War II, tasted like chocolate, but its texture was
chewier, and it contained fortifying ingredients that offered energy and
sustenance to American troops abroad. It was also engineered to survive
long periods of time in a soldier’s pocket without melting.82 During the
war, Hershey received five Army-Navy E awards for excellence. This was
the second-most in the country; the only other consumer product that
played such a prominent role in the war effort was Coca-Cola. As part of
military ration boxes, the Hershey Ration D bar traveled the world with
American soldiers as a reminder of home, but it also became an important
symbol of Americanness for liberated peoples.83
In 1945, Milton Hershey died at the age of eighty-eight. His death
affected everyone in the Hershey community and its larger diaspora. The

81
“Upheaval in Utopia,” Time, Apr. 19, 1937; “In Mr. Hershey’s Utopia Farmers and Strikers War,”
Life, Apr. 19, 1937; “Behind the Strife in Hershey,” Business Week, Apr. 17, 1937.
82
E. Tancredi OHI. The company also developed the Tropical Bar, which was part of soldiers’
rations during World War II in the Pacific. After the war, the Ration D was discontinued, and the
Tropical Bar became standard for US troops through the Vietnam War. The Desert Bar was developed
for distribution during Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s.
83
D’Antonio, Hershey, 234. Other chocolate companies, like Mars, have more eagerly pursued
sales outside the United States. Today, Mars is a much larger player on a global scale, but Hershey is,
as it always has been, king of chocolate in the United States.
360 CATHERINE KOONAR October

company lost its founder and the person who had shaped the firm’s direc-
tion since its inception. The town lost its architect and patriarch. For a
place that had relied (for better or for worse) on the vision of one man for
half a century, his death had many wondering what was next. People from
all over the country, most notably former Milton Hershey School students,
wrote letters expressing their grief. When faced with important decisions,
Hershey executives found themselves asking, “What would Milton do?”
or “What would Milton think?”84 The company’s success was so tied to
a singular vision that it took time for management to take steps toward
modernization.

“Chocolate World”: The Modernization of Tourism and


Marketing in Hershey, 1951–85

Hershey was built on the principle that “all the world loves chocolate,
and all the world will buy chocolate from whoever makes it best and makes
it easy to buy.”85 In the United States, this meant Hershey’s chocolate. In
the fifty years since Milton Hershey founded the town and began to sell
Hershey’s chocolate products, the candy bar had become synonymous in
the United States with the name Hershey. Mr. Hershey had also worked
hard to make his town synonymous with culture, recreation, sports, edu-
cation, and progress. He placed a community building in the center of
town and brought music, theater, and art from around the world to cen-
tral Pennsylvania. He encouraged tourists to take in a play, a concert, or
a sports match while they were visiting the factory. Hershey Estates, the
entity responsible for all non-chocolate operations in Hershey, described
the countryside around the town as “clean and untouched by the smoke
and dust of cities.”86 It was a center of industry, but it was also a place for
relaxation and leisure.
Following the Second World War, a surging economy, increasing lei-
sure time, and the predominance of the automobile changed the way

84
William E. Dearden Oral History Interview, Sept. 29, 1989, 89OH06, Hershey Community
Archives.
85
“Hershey Pennsylvania: 50th Anniversary of the Chocolate Town, 1903–1953,” 1953, 85009,
box 3; folder 38, Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company Collection, Hershey Community
Archives.
86
“Hershey Pennsylvania: 50th Anniversary of the Chocolate Town, 1903–1953.” As time went
on, Hershey also began to capitalize on seasonal attractions: Hersheypark in the Dark, held on the
weekend leading up to Halloween, and Hersheypark Christmas Candylane, which runs from mid-
November to January 1.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 361

Americans traveled. More people were able to travel longer distances more
easily and affordably. In 1955, when Disneyland opened, the way peo-
ple viewed amusement parks also changed.87 By the 1960s, a worn-down
Hersheypark was struggling to attract visitors, and the unfenced layout
made it vulnerable to vandalism and vagrancy. The 1970s marked a turn-
ing point in the park’s history, beginning with fencing it in and charging
admission fees. In order to complete the multiphase redevelopment,
Hershey Estates hired the same company that had designed Disneyland
and entrusted them with transforming Hersheypark into a modern theme
park.88 James Bobb, then president of Hershey Estates, stressed that the
redevelopment sought to modernize the park but also “highlight the
cultural and historical aspects of Hershey and the surrounding areas of
Pennsylvania.”89 Nostalgic elements, including Pennsylvania Dutch Place,
Tudor Square, and Rhineland, were combined with new rides, the rede-
velopment of the zoo, live entertainment, and product characters (the
Hershey Bar and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, for example) that strolled
through the park and interacted with children.
While Hersheypark was suffering, chocolate factory tours were more
popular than ever. In the summer months, factory guides handled ten to
twelve thousand people per day.90 By the 1970s, millions of people visited
the Hershey factory annually. Factory tours emerged from the Progressive-
Era desire of industrial food producers to demonstrate to the public that
the process of large-scale food production was safe, clean, and pure.91 Even
for people who lived in Hershey, it was “exciting to see the real thing—
to go into the factory and actually see it,” as Dena Thomas recalled, and
employees were encouraged to invite their friends and family to take the
guided tour.92 In the early 1970s, however, the factory was closed to the
public. The constant flow of visitors brought in large amounts of body
heat, which caused problems in the wrapping room. The decision to close
87
Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lanham, MD, 2010); Janet Wasko,
Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (Malden, MA, 2001); Pamela Cassidy Whitenack,
Hersheypark (Charleston, SC, 2006).
88
“Information on the Expansion of Hersheypark,” ca. 1971, 85007, box 3, folder 46, Hershey
Entertainment and Resorts Company Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
89
“Hersheypark News: Press Release Regarding Hersheypark Updates,” 1971, 85007, box 5, folder
9, Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company Collection, Hershey Community Archives.
90
Austin C. Geiling Jr. Oral History Interview, 1991, 91OH30, Hershey Community Archives.
91
See, for example, Petrick, “Purity as Life”; Koehn, “Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the
Late Nineteenth Century”; and Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American
Mass Market (New York, 1989).
92
Dena Thomas Oral History Interview, Mar. 28, 2006, 2006OH06, Hershey Community
Archives; “Hershey’s Guiding Principles.”
362 CATHERINE KOONAR October

also emerged from concerns over visitor safety, the challenge of emergency
evacuations, and fears regarding sanitation and cleanliness.93
Chocolate World, designed to replace factory tours, opened in the sum-
mer of 1973.94 Adjacent to the new Hersheypark entrance, the attraction
was designed to accommodate eighteen thousand people per day. While
Chocolate World operated separately from Hersheypark, it was significant
in Hershey’s transition to a theme park. Chocolate World simulates parts
of the process of chocolate production, from cocoa plantations in the trop-
ics to making chocolate in Hershey. It also includes food service facilities
and shops selling Hershey products and memorabilia. Hershey resident
Pat Brandt recalled that it did not recreate the factory, but “they tried
to make it look very much like it, and, you know, a lot of it they did, but
it wasn’t like going through the factory.”95 While visitors missed the real
factory tours, Chocolate World appealed to children and thus fit well into
the future Hershey Estates envisioned for the town as a family-orientated
destination.
Beginning in the 1960s, advertising and marketing strategy also began
to change. Milton Hershey had always relied on the reputation of the
company to sell products; even in the 1960s, Hershey was the only Fortune
500 company without a marketing department.96 The chocolate and candy
market had changed considerably since the early twentieth century, but the
company had not made any progress in how it approached advertising or
sales. With Mars salespeople in every region of the United States, Hershey
was playing catch-up.
Since the company’s establishment in the early twentieth century,
Hershey’s products had dominated the American market. In 1973, Mars
moved ahead of Hershey for the first time.97 The Hershey bar was still
popular and widely consumed, but the chocolate and candy market had
changed, and Hershey needed to make some institutional changes in order
to compete with Mars in this new confectionary landscape. When Bill
Dearden, a former Milton Hershey School boy, was hired to design and

93
Robert H. Schock Oral History Interview, Dec. 13, 1990, 90OH30, Hershey Community
Archives.
94
The company has since redesigned Chocolate World. While parts of the ride still recreate milk
chocolate making for visitors, features for young children—including singing animatronic cows and
Hershey product characters—now predominate.
95
Pat Brandt Oral History Interview, 2006, 2006HS17, Hershey Community Archives.
96
Joël Glenn Brenner, The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars (New
York, 1999).
97
Brenner, 227.
2018 MAKING CHOCOLATE AMERICAN 363

head the new marketing department at Hershey Foods in the late 1960s, he
moved to increase the efficiency of the advertising and sales strategy. Over
time Hershey managed to retake the top spot in the US candy market.
In the past, the Hershey Company had considered modest in-store dis-
plays, the town and its amenities, and postcards inside candy bar wrappers
to be sufficient promotion for its products. In the 1970s, however, the
company decided to pursue a more aggressive advertising strategy, acquir-
ing and introducing new products (for example, Reese’s and Hershey’s
Special Dark), making sure the products they advertised were prominently
featured in stores, and targeting holiday shoppers.98 Hershey also tried to
focus its advertising on children and young people, and it looked for product
placement opportunities. For example, Reese’s Pieces made a now-iconic
appearance in the 1982 movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. The company
also put resources into fighting the “junk food” label and the argument that
children’s access to confections should be limited.99 Starting a marketing
department was a huge step for the company. When Milton Hershey died
in 1945, the managers and executives who had worked with him directly,
many of them for decades, took over operations of the Hershey Chocolate
Company. Mr. Hershey had made nearly every decision for the company
since its foundation, and his successors strived to continue his practices. It
was not until the next generation of corporate leaders assumed control in
the late 1960s and early 1970s that the question “What would Milton do?”
faded into the background of the company ethos.

Conclusion

Milton Hershey manufactured the first milk chocolate bar in the


United States in 1900. By 1904 he had built a factory and a community
in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and the company, the town,
and its founder were beginning to attract attention. Over the course of the
twentieth century, Hershey became synonymous with chocolate in
America. The town became a destination, and many Americans considered
Mr. Hershey a great industrialist and philanthropist. This process began
by naturalizing the tropical ingredients—cocoa and sugar—in Hershey’s
milk chocolate through a process that created distance between the United

98
Larry D. Johns Oral History Interview, Aug. 6, 1991, 91OH1991, Hershey Community
Archives.
99
Earl J. Spangler Oral History Interview, Dec. 12, 1989, 89OH30, Hershey Community Archives.
364 CATHERINE KOONAR October

States and the tropics, emphasized American knowledge and technology,


and deemphasized the nonwhite labor that produced it. Similarly, Hershey’s
presence in Cuba was reduced to stories of Mr. Hershey’s benevolence, and
instances of labor unrest and revolt were largely ignored. In the 1930s,
members of the media, local supporters, and others praised Hershey’s abil-
ity to keep the Depression at bay and accused striking workers of disloyalty
and troublemaking. As Mr. Hershey continued to add to the town’s tourist
infrastructure, the national media emphasized the town’s amenities and
aesthetic charm in their scathing assessments of the CIO-backed strikers.
By the time Mr. Hershey died, the town was a popular destination, but the
company needed to adapt to postwar culture, the importance of children as
consumers, and the new landscape of confectionary advertising. Hershey
relied on its history and status as “America’s candy bar” to promote the
town. Mr. Hershey’s legacy remained prominent in this narrative, while
elements of imperialism and labor unrest were pushed to the periphery.
Hershey remains America’s most popular chocolate, and millions of vaca-
tioning families visit the town every year. Mr. Hershey’s place as patriarch
remains important in the identity of Hershey as both a company and a
community.

University of Toronto Catherine Koonar

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