Milton Hershey

Milton Hershey WebBy TomYou may ask why I chose Milton Hershey for the My Hero Project. Well, I like Hershey's chocolate bars so I looked in the classroom library and looked for a book about Milton Hershey, and I saw a book called Who Was Milton Hershey? It looked interesting, so I chose it for my hero. This book is a biography about Milton S. Hershey's life and it's 103 pages long. The time span across the biography is 1857 to 1945. The biography was published in 2013.

Portrait Picture of Milton HersheyBy TomMilton S. Hershey was born in Pennsylvania in 1857, four years later the American Civil War happened. He hid all of his money in a can and buried it under the farm crops, but then he later couldn't find the can! He had one sister named Serina, who sadly passed away from scarlet fever when Milton Hershey was nine. His mother Fanny was a devoted Mennonite. His father, Henry, was a dreamer who was constantly starting new jobs and working on his next "get rich quick" scheme. Milton S. Hershey went to school for a few years, then dropped out when he was thirteen in 1870. Two years later he got a job at Royers Candy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He really liked mixing things together on his break to make new candies there. He later then learned the secret to mass-produce milk chocolate, giving it a longer shelf life before it melted. He later started the Lancaster Caramel Company in 1882. Milton Hershey later visited The World's Exposition in Chicago and found a German Chocolate company made a temple out of chocolate! It stood almost 38 feet tall, about as tall as a four-story building! Hershey was amazed. Inside a building there were iron machines clunking and puffing away. Hershey asked what they were making and they said they were making chocolate. He placed an order for some machines so he didn't have to make it by hand. He could just pour the ingredients into the machine and go and help other customers.

Full Body Picture of Milton HersheyBy TomWhen Hershey was 25 in 1882, Milton Hershey's store in Philadelphia shut down and he moved to Colorado. In 1898 Hershey married Catherine Sweeney. Two years later he took a risk and sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for one million dollars. Three years later, he started a new company, the Hershey chocolate factory, in the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The Hershey industrial school opened, serving orphan boys and people who were too poor to support their children. He was going to take Catherine Sweeney on a cruise, but the ship was full, so they went on another ship. The ship they didn’t board was the Titanic! It turned out to be an incredible stroke of good luck for Milton and Catherine. In 1915 Catherine Sweeney sadly passed away from poor health and Hershey never married again, but he kept photos of her in every room of the house. He gained fame and money from his milk chocolate. Milton Hershey was a kind and creative person and a smart man. In recognition of its outstanding efforts, Hershey Chocolate Corporation received the Army-Navy ‘E‘ Production Award at a special ceremony held August 22, 1942.

I was very surprised when I was reading the book, I learned that he had an entire town named after him! I was very surprised when I learned that he was almost going to go on the Titanic, but he had amazing luck that it was full and that he had to go onto another cruise because of this. If I could ask three questions to him, I would ask: Why did you drop out of school? Why did you create an entire town? Why did you start off with caramel and not milk chocolate, or any other chocolate? I would really recommend this book because it's informational and fun to read. It's a bit short for some older grades, but for younger grades it would be a great book to read. I learned that he had a caramel company before the chocolate factory that we know today. I wouldn't really consider him a role model. I am happy I chose this person to learn about cause I learned a lot about chocolate and making it.