MARGOT OPDYCKE LAMME AND LISA MULLIKIN PARCELL
Promoting Hershey
The Chocolate Bar, The Chocolate Town, The Chocolate King
Before the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar debuted in 1900 at five cents, chocolate bars had been a luxury known only to those
Americans who could afford imported “eating chocolate” from Europe. By 1906 Hershey’s chocolate bars were so popular, Milton
Hershey proclaimed that Hershey dominated the market and redirected his promotional efforts away from consumer advertising.
Raised in the Mennonite faith, Hershey identified with Mennonite principles that, in part, taught their followers to help others and
to abhor self-promotion and obvious signs of commercial wealth. Thus, he focused on promotional strategies that conveyed deeper
and more complex ideas to employees, consumers, and visitors about the value of quality, community, harmony, purity, and social
compassion, which, in turn, reflected back upon the company, the brand, the town, and the man.
I
n 2011, Advertising Age reported that The Hershey Company,
111 years old, was ranked among the top 100 advertisers in
the United States, having increased worldwide ad spending
by $62.2 million over the previous year for total expenditures
of $440.5 million, the bulk of which was devoted to television
advertising.1 Yet some sixty-four years earlier, the same magazine
ran a lengthy piece about how Hershey had no need for advertising.
Between products sold directly to consumers and those sold to
other businesses, such as creameries and confectioners, Hershey
was producing “about one-third of all chocolate and cocoa products
consumed in the United States” while the United States as a whole
accounted for about 40 percent of the consumption of all such
products worldwide.2 With an estimated combined value of more
than $100 million at the time of this December 1947 story, then-
198
chairman Percy Staples said the company was “no closer than ever
to becoming an advertiser.”3
When the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar was introduced in
America in 1900, the chocolate industry was concentrated on
baking chocolate, with Boston-based Baker’s Chocolate Company
the strong leader in this product line since 1780.4 Hershey was
unique in that it was built on the business of, as W. Greg Rothman
put it, “democratizing chocolate.”5 Until the Hershey’s Milk
Chocolate Bar debuted in 1900 at a price of five cents, chocolate
bars were a luxury known only to those Americans who could
afford imported “eating chocolate” from Europe. By 1906 Milton
Hershey proclaimed that Hershey’s chocolate dominated the eating
chocolate market.6 The next year marked the debut of Hershey’s
Kisses, followed a year later by Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with
Almonds Bar. The company’s next big
product launches of Mr. Goodbar and
MEG LAMME, left, is an associate professor in the
Hershey’s Syrup would not occur until
Department of Advertising & Public Relations, The
1925 and 1926, respectively, followed
University of Alabama. LISA MULLIKIN PARCELL
by Krackel (1938), Miniatures
is an assistant professor in the Elliott School of
Chocolates (1939), and “more than a
Communication, Wichita State University. Special
billion” ration bars for soldiers (1941thanks to Wichita State University for supporting
1945), according to The Hershey
this study through a Research/Creative Projects
Company timeline.7 “If you were in a
Award and to Pamela Whitenack, director of the
mile race,” Milton Hershey was quoted
Hershey Community Archives, and Tammy Hamilton,
as saying, “and you were in good health
archivist, for their time and assistance.
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
and feeling fine and going good, if a
fellow didn’t start till you were three
quarters of a mile round the track, it
would not matter how fast he was, he
could not beat you.”8
With no need for brand
differentiation, then, Hershey concluded early on that money spent
on consumer advertising could be
put to better use in developing the
product, the company, and the town
in Pennsylvania.9 The product, Milton
Hershey and his managers often said,
sold itself. This strategic focus on the
brand coupled with a rejection of
consumer-based paid placement ads
continued for more than sixty years.
Although on the face of it,
redirecting monies from consumer
advertising and into the company’s
workplace and lifestyle infrastructure
might appear to be simply a sound
business move, Hershey had another,
more personal reason for rejecting paid
placement advertising. A grandson
of a Mennonite bishop and son of
a practicing Mennonite, Hershey
identified with Mennonite principles
that, in part, teach their followers to
work for the good of others and to
abhor self-promotion and obvious
signs of commercial wealth. Blatant
advertising of a commercial product
to increase profits did not mesh
with such beliefs. Of more benefit
to Hershey, the man, and Hershey,
the company, it may be these very
principles that protected Hershey
from the investigative journalism of
the muckrakers that befell some of
Hershey’s contemporaries in the first
decade of the century.
Hershey operated when national businesses, particularly food
processing companies such as
Campbell’s, Nabisco, Gold Medal,
and Baker’s, increasingly relied on
placing national consumer advertising
in newspapers and magazines.10 What
By 1910 when this photograph of Milton Hershey was taken in Nice, France, Hershey was
makes Hershey, the Chocolate King,
a wealthy man who traveled widely. After the death of his wife in 1915, Hershey spent even
more significant is that he did just the
more time away. Image courtesy of Hershey Community Archives, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
opposite, eschewing paid-placement
consumer advertising in favor of creatively promoting his utopian
The Hershey Company has been featured in books and articles
town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, which, indirectly, promoted his about the chocolate industry and about Hershey programs and
chocolate products. Although these initiatives also cost money, products. Topics have included its corporate history exhibits; its
Hershey did not consider them to be “advertising” because they Teachers for West Africa Program, launched in 1962; its business
were not paid placements in media outlets. Influenced, in part, by history, such as Milton Hershey’s early obstacles to establishing his
his own Mennonite sensibility, these outreach initiatives generated caramel company; its Cuban sugar plantations and the company’s
outcomes Hershey valued: more consumers, employees, and fight against the U.S. sugar tariff; the Milton Hershey School
visitors seeking combinations of pure, high-quality chocolate and Trust’s intention to sell its interest in the Hershey Company;
a wholesome quality of work, life, and leisure.
and its modern financial management practices.11 The company
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
199
also has been featured in studies of product placement, often as relevant social and cultural historical context.”19 This layered
because of the famous use of Reese’s Pieces in the 1982 film, E.T. approach revealed the ways in which Hershey used elements of its
the Extra-Terrestrial.12 The Hershey Bar has even been employed company story in its promotional efforts over time to convey the
as a teaching tool to explain phylogenetic relationships within larger meaning of the Hershey Company and its values.
evolutionary biology.13 What has not been examined is the history
of the company’s promotional efforts to understand how Hershey
ilton Snavely Hershey was born in 1857 in central
drew people to embrace the product, the company, and the town
Pennsylvania to a mother who was a practicing
with little paid media placement even as advertising and America’s
Reformed Mennonite and daughter of a Lancaster
consumer culture were on the rise.
County Mennonite bishop, and to a Mennonite father who in the
The scholarly literature is largely bereft of historical works on best of times was a dreamer of big ideas and, in the worst of times,
Milton Hershey and his company perhaps because of the dearth of a ne’er-do-well who could not support his family.20 When Hershey
primary sources left by the man himself.
was twelve years old, his devoted and
With little formal education, Hershey
pragmatic mother urged him into
wrote and signed few documents in his “‘Eating chocolate’ was not only apprenticeships first in the ice cream and
lifetime and left even fewer, and thus no
then, soon after, the candy businesses.
hailed as a healthful product, By 1872, he had learned the secret
archival collections of his papers are known
to exist. Reporters writing about Hershey
to making milk caramels that would
but also as a virtuous one,
during his lifetime even commented on
have a long shelf life, and, during the
Hershey’s noted abstinence from letter
1876 Philadelphia Exposition, Hershey
having
been
endorsed
writing and signatures.14 Additionally,
operated his own candy shop, supported
the promotional materials the Hershey
and staffed in no small part by his mother
by the temperance advocates
Company produced and distributed over
and his aunt.21 Subsequent work led
time were not fully documented along
him to, among other places, the Smith
in England as an alternative
the way. While the archive contains a
Bros. in Poughkeepsie, New York, where
to alcohol. As a new industry, he learned how to structure operations
substantial number of early magazine
ads, brochures, postcards, and other
for low costs, including low wages, and
the production and sales
promotional material, it is currently
New York City, where retail was moving
impossible to directly correlate individual
toward a consumer orientation with
of eating chocolate also
promotional items with sales figures.15
production efficiency yielding higher
What does remain, however, is the
quality and lower prices.22
presented opportunities
opportunity to piece together the existing
Other attempts at starting up
promotional pieces with information
businesses in Chicago and New York led to
to businessmen who might
on intent gleaned from interviews of
failure and indebtedness and, eventually,
otherwise have been shunned
people associated with the company.
a move back to Lancaster, where Hershey’s
These interviews comprise a voluminous
luck changed. Transportation, fuel, and a
by the Protestant mainstream.” sound labor pool were just some of the
collection and were conducted in the
1950s by Paul A.W. Wallace, who had
factors he leveraged there, and by the
been commissioned by the Milton
1890s, his Crystal A caramel company,
Hershey School to write Hershey’s biography. While the biography later renamed the Lancaster Caramel Company, was producing
was never published, Wallace’s meticulous notes and transcripts premium brands in 450,000 square feet of factory space.23 In
provide a wealth of information about the company, its employees, 1893, however, at the Chicago Exposition, Hershey watched a
the town, and Hershey himself.16
demonstration for the production of eating chocolate, from the
The purpose of this study, then, is to examine the ways in roasting of the cocoa beans to the finished chocolate bar.24 Hershey
which the Hershey Company’s decidedly indirect approach to purchased the equipment, determined to refocus his business on
promoting the company, the town and, by association, the products chocolate as a nutritious treat that, unlike the richness of caramels,
themselves, closely aligned to traditions of Mennonite principles. could be eaten every day.25 “Eating chocolate” was not only hailed
The focus is on the years between 1900, when Hershey sold his as a healthful product, but also as a virtuous one, having been
caramel business to focus exclusively on chocolate, and 1945, the endorsed by the temperance advocates in England as an alternative
year of his death. Primary sources for this study include artifacts to alcohol. As a new industry, the production and sales of eating
from the Hershey Community Archives, including the Wallace chocolate also presented opportunities to businessmen who might
interviews that focus on the company’s promotional efforts and otherwise have been shunned by the Protestant mainstream.26
promotional collateral, and news and trade publication articles
Indeed, what might be considered Hershey’s English
written about Hershey and his company during this time period.17 counterpart, albeit one that had a longer history, was the Quaker
This study employed a multi-faceted approach using cultural- company Cadbury. Amid a going concern of coffee and tea,
historical and narrative analysis18 as well as a layered reading and John Cadbury shifted into the cocoa business in 1831 but was
interpretation of the promotional materials produced by Hershey. unsuccessful in capturing the elite cocoa consumer market.
Similar to the study conducted on Gold Medal and Pillsbury flours In 1865, his sons saved the company by building on the cocoa
by the same authors, this method makes it possible to first identify product line until their launch of the Dairy Milk bar in 1905.27
emerging patterns in text, message structure, and image, and then The bar was the first eating chocolate to come out of the Cadburys’
to interpret the meaning of those themes “with an understanding own utopian company town in Bournville, England, which they
of professional promotional tactics and methods of the time as well began building in 1879.28
M
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Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
The Dairy Milk bar’s debut also coincided with Hershey’s
own success. Six years after selling his caramel company for $1
million, Hershey had $1.2 million in sales, with the Hershey’s Milk
Chocolate Bar dominating the U.S. market at a nickel each.29 A
February 1906 ad in the trade publication Confectioners’ Journal
proclaimed, “There is more of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate sold
than all other domestic brands combined.”30 By that time, too,
Hershey had moved his operations to a location fifteen miles east
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in Derry Church, Lancaster County.
Soon the town itself, a chocolate utopia with Hershey’s Kisses
topping the streetlamps, chocolate wafting through the air, and
happy cows dotting the countryside to provide pure, fresh milk
for the company’s distinctive creamy chocolate products, was well
under way.31
M
ilton Hershey, as man and industrial leader, came of age
in the midst of great societal shifts in the United States,
as reformers began to challenge the laissez-faire model of
self-determination and called for policy regulation informed by the
domestic sphere.32 The so-called robber barons of the Gilded Age,
such as the Vanderbilts, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie,
and J.P. Morgan, immersed in the spoils of capitalism, would
soon be prosecuted in the court of public opinion by turn-of-thecentury muckrakers.
Unlike many of those captains of industry, however, Hershey
was spared and even celebrated. He conformed to a profile of many
Mennonite businessmen who were financially successful often by
engaging in agricultural enterprises, businesses that directly or
indirectly relied upon agricultural resources for their product or
service, such as poultry processing and trucking.33 Or, in Hershey’s
case, dairy. No less of an industrial magnate than his counterparts,
Hershey focused on quality, efficiency, and economies of scale,
lessons he had learned in the years leading up to the chocolate
business. Yet, in contrast to those who exploited the lands and their
workers to build their oil, steel, and railway empires, for example,
Hershey purchased the land in Lancaster County to fulfill his vision
of a small town in the countryside: efficient and harmonious, with
fresh air and good, clean living for the workers and their families.
“There was nothing malicious about him,” according to one
interview subject not fully identified in the Wallace collection.
“He liked people, people here—not general humanity. He was
not like the Rockefellers or the Texas oilmen, who have endowed
universities for research, so that all humanity will benefit. Hershey
benefitted only this place here.”34
Hershey was guided by the Golden Rule and the Ten
Commandments. He was a “humanist with a little religious bias,”
according to a minister of the time. His approach to faith “was a
cold, ethical thing without divine reference.”35 As a boy, he attended
church with his mother, and those values became ingrained in him;
however, he did not consider himself a practicing believer. Later,
as the namesake and symbol for the brand, the company, and the
town, Hershey did not single out one church to attend because
he wanted to help all of the churches in town and avoid bad
feelings by favoring one over the others.36 Additionally, Hershey
acknowledged that he found religion to be “too theoretical” and so
set out instead to “see how much good I could do in the world.”37
Hershey’s growth as a businessman coincided with enormous
changes in the Mennonite community, which included new
technologies and new approaches to organizational management
and promotions.38 He embraced these developments even as he
kept to a more traditional idea of a single authority figure—in
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
The Hershey Chocolate Company used this cocoa-pod-shaped
booklet to explain that Hershey’s “superior” chocolate results
from the ideal sanitary conditions found in the hills of
Pennsylvania, the factory’s modern machinery, and Hershey’s
use of only the “best and purest materials.” Photos of the Hershey
town and chocolate products fill the inside pages. Image courtesy
of Hershey Community Archives, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
this case, Hershey himself—as he developed his company and
his utopia. He not only built the town of Hershey where he was
raised, but he also hired his first employees and some of his most
loyal lieutenants from the surrounding Anabaptist communities.
Although he did not count himself a practicing Mennonite, he
demonstrated fundamental principles of the Mennonite tradition
in conducting his business and in conveying promotional messages.
The Mennonite values of purity, unity, truth, and harmony, for
example, lent themselves well to a product that bridged social and
economic boundaries.39
The role of faith in Mennonite business is still not clear, but,
according to sociologist Calvin Redekop, a Mennonite and a
scholar in Mennonite history and practice, four generalizations can
be made about the factors contributing to Mennonites’ success in
business: stewardship, the idea that Mennonites are “trustees and
caretakers of their God-given blessings”; hard work; communityfocused emphasis; and individual economic security.40 In building
Hershey, Pennsylvania, Milton Hershey realized ideals of pastoral
living, harkening to an agrarian lifestyle that prized family and
community. In time, those sensibilities extended to the product,
the brand, and the company, even to Hershey himself.
I
n the beginning, while building the Lancaster Caramel
Company and again in the early years of the Hershey
Chocolate Company, Hershey did, despite later claims to
the contrary, engage in advertising. The archival sources tended
to use “advertising” to refer to any promotional effort; however,
in examining the evidence, it was clear that Hershey’s foray into
paid media placement largely concerned the trade press whereas
outreach to consumers consisted of promotional efforts more
closely associated with the public relations function, such as
news releases, postcards, posters, premiums, and recipe books. It
was also clear that although Hershey did not like spending for
paid placement, he nevertheless understood its importance as he
launched his chocolate enterprise. One contemporary recalled, for
example, that in 1901, “the business was on the increase because of
the growth of population and because of advertising propaganda,
201
in which field Hershey was a leader.”41 Another confirmed that
Hershey was well aware of the value of these advertising efforts.42
For paid media advertising placements, then, Hershey relied
heavily on business-to-business trade journals. Ads used by the
Lancaster Caramel Company in the decade before Hershey
sold it provided templates for Hershey’s later use in advertising
his chocolate company. Confectioners’ Journal ads for Lancaster
Caramel, for example, were text-heavy and mostly announced
the goods and prices for sale.43 Very few used illustrations, but
simply made concise claims about the caramels in various sizes of
typeface. In an 1893 advertisement, the company asserted, “We
are the largest producers of caramels in this country.” The ad
continued that the company operated its own creameries, made
all of its own boxes on the premises, had the latest machinery,
including specially adapted and patented improvements of its own
design, and provided “the best quality for the least money” since
the factory was in “one of the finest dairy districts.”44 Another ad
featured large line drawings of four factories and office buildings of
Lancaster Caramel, a technique common at the time to show the
prosperity and magnitude of a company.45 Additionally, many of
Hershey’s ads in Confectioners’ Journal proclaimed, “Our Products
are all Warranted Absolutely Pure.”46
These messages and images that conveyed self-sufficiency,
purity tied to proximity of dairies and ingredients, technology, and
industrial power were later echoed in similar advertisements for the
Hershey Chocolate Company. For example, purity, according to
Milton Hershey in a 1906 ad for the Hershey Chocolate Company,
was not simply a matter of not adding foreign substances to a
product, but also of starting with the purest ingredients available.
Hershey told readers that they “should not only consider the
purity of the goods, but also the quality of the raw materials from
which they are made and the reputation of the manufacturer who
guarantees them.”47 That is, it was not only Hershey’s chocolate
that was unmatched in quality, but also its production process and,
by extension, the Hershey Chocolate Company itself.
The most common early Hershey Chocolate Company ads
in the Confectioners’ Journal were simple statements of goods
and, occasionally, prices.48 These ads touted some combination
of Hershey’s chocolate and vanilla sweet coatings, chocolate soda
syrup, powdered chocolate (cocoa), and individual chocolate
candies.49 The ads, in fact, read more like a menu of items available
and used little persuasive language. Most concluded with a simple
request for merchants to inquire for more information if interested.
After 1906, even these declined dramatically. Ads in Confectioners’
Journal dropped in size from full page to half or quarter pages. Each
of these ads, instead of promoting a number of Hershey products,
focused on one product.50
However, once Hershey launched his Hershey, Pennsylvania,
operations, the advertising clearly changed its focus from simple
product announcements to tying the quality of the chocolate
product to its new manufacturing facility. A 1904 ad in
Confectioners’ Journal began with a large question mark, followed
by a question to the reader asking, “Did you ever stop to think that
the manufacturer operating the largest and best equipped plant in
the world, erected for the specific purpose for which it is employed,
is in a position to offer you BETTER GOODS for the SAME
MONEY, or THE SAME GOODS for LESS MONEY than any
other house having a limited capacity and meager equipment?”51
In fact, claimed a 1906 ad, while its competitors made “strenuous
efforts” to attract business through special deals and advertising,
Hershey instead had trouble keeping up with demand for its highquality product manufactured in “the largest and most complete
This image of happy cows contentedly grazing in lush Pennsylvania fields was one of the many “bar cards” the Hershey Company
wrapped inside its chocolate bars between 1909 and 1918 to convey messages about the purity and quality of the product, the
company, and the town. Doubling as postcards, the bar cards functioned on a word-of-mouth principle: Hershey consumers could
access the promotional card only after opening the bar wrapper. By sharing the card, consumers spread the company’s messages.
Image courtesy of Hershey Community Archives, Hershey, Pennsylvania.
202
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
plant of its kind in the World.”52 Not only was the factory large
but also, readers were assured, it was so clean, “You could eat off
the floor without fear,” which, of course, resulted in a more pure
finished product.53 As the rapidly increasing concern over food
purity punctuated by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 caused a
shift in advertising messages across the nation,54 Hershey explained
to readers that the tranquil Pennsylvania rolling hills provided the
perfect environment for producing wholesome and nutritious
chocolate. Quite simply, pure, clean healthy cows produced pure,
clean healthy milk, which, in turn, produced pure, clean healthy
chocolate. In a small brochure distributed in the first decade of
1900, Hershey explained this in detail.
Surrounded by seven hundred
acres of finest grazing land, famed
throughout the world for its
agricultural richness, and owned
exclusively by the Hershey Chocolate
Company, is located their extensive
works . . . especially erected for the
manufacture of milk chocolate.
Maintained by the company are
herds of Alderney cattle, who thrive
abundantly on this choice pasture
where they may also drink the pure,
unpolluted water from the natural
springs which plentifully abound.
Thus the rich, fresh milk entering
into Hershey Milk Chocolate is
absolutely free from dust, soot
and other impurities practically
impossible to provide against in
factories located in the heart of
thickly populated cities.55
“Employees recalled that
these connections among
Mennonite values, purity,
the town of Hershey,
and Hershey chocolate were
intentional. One remembered
that, in 1905, Hershey
established Hershey Park
because ‘he wanted to have
the public come to Hershey.
He wanted to make the people
want to come and work in
this town.’ He did not want to
charge a lot; he wanted
‘to build up a good town.’”
These early years of trade
advertisements also corresponded with
some attempts at outdoor consumer
advertising.56 One employee remembered
that Milton Hershey had “a big sign here
in New York on the way to Harlem, at
the turn, 110th Street: ‘HERSHEY’S MILK CHOCOLATE.’ He
spent a lot of money on advertising in his younger years. Afterwards
he didn’t need to.”57 Another recalled, “He had an office on West
Broadway and used billboards all over New York. This was while he
was in Lancaster.”58 And still another described “billboards all over
town (New York): white on blue background, with white letters:
‘Hershey Chocolate: a Food to Eat; Hershey Cocoa: a Food to
Drink.’”59
As Hershey turned away from paid-placement advertising,
he created his own recipe for promotion that included controlled
publications, such as brochures, pamphlets, news releases,
promotional premiums, and a strong sales force. In 1906, for
example, Hershey offered merchants a novelty of “mail pouches”
filled with Hershey milk chocolate wafers. These “mail pouches”
were nestled in “mail cars” a shop owner could sit on the counter.60
It was not uncommon for businesses during this time to rely on
their own sales forces and their distributors to promote a product,
especially when consumers were already familiar with it.61 In
Hershey’s case, however, lessons learned from his successful caramel
business about the power of personal contact drove his decisions
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
about promotions in his new chocolate enterprise. In 1955, John
C. Mc.Clain recalled Hershey telling him that the “‘only way to
establish a successful business is personal contact.’ He had forty
to a hundred men on the road. When he started the chocolate
business, he wanted men to call on the grocery trade, contact them
every ten days if possible. The caramel business contacted their
clients once a month or two months. That was because he was
pushing the chocolate business. He had proved the principle in
the caramel business. Instead of putting a million in advertising,
as Baker did, he put so many more men on the road.”62 A Hershey
employee also noted that some of those monies not spent on
consumer advertising were channeled
into providing deeper dealer discounts.63
A
lthough it was not until 1934
that Hershey hired Alexander
Stoddart to be the company’s
first full-time publicity representative for
Hershey Park, the Hershey Company
began promoting the town from the
start. As the town of Hershey grew, the
company shifted to the more complex
layers of promotional messages and
imagery that were designed to attract to
the Chocolate Town potential employees
and their families looking for a workplace
and quality of life, and then, later,
visitors seeking a wholesome vacation
destination. Such promotional efforts
included booklets, recipes, and news
releases, which often read like brochure
copy. The theme of purity continued,
however, in the context of product
ingredients, manufacturing, or the larger
environment of Hershey in which the
plant and its workers resided, as did
references to the Mennonite traditions
of harmony, community, hard work, and
self-sufficiency.
Employees recalled that these
connections among Mennonite values,
purity, the town of Hershey, and Hershey chocolate were intentional.
One remembered that, in 1905, Hershey established Hershey
Park because “he wanted to have the public come to Hershey. He
wanted to make the people want to come and work in this town.”
He did not want to charge a lot; he wanted “to build up a good
town. ‘You give the rates,’ I said, ‘and I’ll do the rest. We’ll give the
entertainment and do the advertising.’”64 Another reported that
Hershey “was always remarking on” the fact that people came to
the park from other states and that they knew it was “the Chocolate
Town; and naturally it was an indirect advertisement for Hershey
Chocolate.”65 Hershey also, according to this employee, counted
the town’s hockey team as an effective promotional tool once a
businessman told him that he had seen the team play in Madison
Square Garden.66 Later, in discussing the promotion of the Hershey
Hotel, an employee recalled Milton Hershey explaining, “‘I build
up a big business and I never advertise. You give ’em a little more
than anybody else.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but it takes so much longer.’ He
replied, ‘But you are building a better foundation for the hotel if
you do it that way.’”67
A cornerstone of that foundation was the promotional
203
material that Hershey produced in his own printing plant, such
For the green grass grew all around, all around.
as a series of booklets and bar cards that told the story of the town
For the green grass grew all around.72
and the company.68 The booklets, which ranged from postcardto letter-size, featured images with some text that explained how
This series of books, repeating themes of sanitary and efficient
chocolate was discovered, how it was processed in Hershey, and chocolate production, nutritional qualities, and the wholesome,
how the rich agricultural land and pure air and water contributed pastoral setting of the town of Hershey, continued until well after
to the purity of the product. They also highlighted the buildings, World War II.
the entertainment, and factories of Hershey. Readers were given to
It was through what Hershey called the “bar cards” that the
understand that the quality of the Hershey chocolate product was most creative tie between the chocolate product and the Chocolate
directly tied to the quality of the town of Hershey. A small, pocket- Town was created. Hershey placed small postcards inside the
size booklet distributed to merchants to give to customers at the end wrappers of each bar of chocolate between 1909 and 1922. Of
of the first decade of 1900, for example,
the sixty-two bar cards remaining in the
not only reinforced Milton Hershey’s
all but three of them portrayed
“It was through what Hershey archives,
focus on personal sales contact, but also
scenes from the town of Hershey. Many
touted Hershey’s manufacturing process,
of these were scenes of the Hershey farms,
called the ‘bar cards’ that the
which because it was “performed entirely
complete with happy, grazing cows under
by the use of modern hydraulic presses of
the sun. Others were of town buildings
most creative tie between the
enormous power, the purity, palatability
such as the Open Air Theatre in Hershey
and highest nutritive qualities of the
Park, the Golf Club House, the Hershey
chocolate product and the
beans are thus retained. Alkalines or
Industrial School, and the Hershey
Chocolate Town was created.
chemicals–which by some manufacturers
Power Plant. And, of course, there were
are used as an economical method of
scenes of the factory itself nestled in the
Hershey placed small postcards rolling Pennsylvania hills. Leisure scenes
eliminating the indigestible substances–
have a tendency to destroy much of the
were also common, depicting men and
inside the wrappers
flavor inherent to good cocoa.”69 And, in
women picnicking in the park, families
another brochure, shaped like a cocoa
playing in the pool, women floating
of each bar of chocolate
pod, Hershey attempted to explain
down a river in row boats, and girls with
why Hershey chocolate and cocoa
light-colored dresses and big hair bows
between 1909 and 1922.”
were superior to other manufacturers’
swinging on rope ladders. The beauty
products. According to the booklet,
of these bar cards, from a promotional
“the principle reason” Hershey’s chocolate was superior was that it standpoint, was that consumers could use them only after opening
used “only the very best and purest materials in the manufacture a Hershey Bar, essentially providing a personal endorsement, then,
of all products.”70 A booklet that reached out to mothers, in of both the product and the town when they mailed the cards to
particular, assured them, “[T]here is nothing more healthful or friends and family. That is, the consumer could not see or access
nourishing than good Cocoa. Its food value cannot be excelled the promotional item until after the purchase had been made,
for either young or old. Why injure the child’s health with tea or reinforcing Hershey’s rejection of paid, placed advertising in lieu
coffee when Cocoa more than satisfies, builds up the tissues, or of, in this case, word of mouth, to generate interest in the town
is in other words ‘A FOOD TO DRINK.’”71 That same booklet itself.
captured the health, purity, and wholesomeness of the product and
incorporated messages Hershey promoted about both the town
constant backdrop to the company’s promotional
and, by association, the chocolate, in an adaptation of a popular
strategies was the image of Milton Hershey as the
song of the time:
Chocolate King, a kindly candy maker. He did not
actively cultivate this perception. In fact, his affinity for travel, his
A beautiful town in a valley lay,
devotion to his wife, Catherine Sweeney Hershey, who suffered ill
Where a lot of people night and day
health until her death in 1915, and his development and oversight of
Make Hershey’s Chocolate and Cocoa
the company’s sugar plantation operations in Cuba actually meant
As clean and pure as the falling snow.
that he was not often available to reporters.73 Nevertheless, one
And the green grass grew all around, all around,
topic dear to Hershey’s heart was the Hershey Industrial School, or
And the green grass grew all around.
Orphan’s Home, that he and Catherine Hershey founded in 1909.
To the Mennonites, Calvin Redekop explained, “social compassion”
The beautiful cows in the pasture fed,
is “an expected role behavior.”74 Although not without its outside
Clean as could be from their tails to their head.
critics, the Orphan’s Home encapsulated that sentiment. It was
Making pure milk early and late
established for orphan boys, whom Hershey considered to be boys
For making Hershey’s Cocoa and Chocolate.
who might be parentless or have one parent (usually a mother) who
And the green grass grew all around, all around.
was unable to care for them. Girls, explained Hershey, were more
And the green grass grew all around.
easily adoptable, so he and his wife wanted to reach out to boys.75
Milton Hershey was adamant that the boys not be used for paid
A little child said to her mother dear,
placement advertising, however.76 Hershey told Fortune in 1934 that
‘Cocoa and Chocolate are healthful, I hear.’
“to have advertised that to the world would have seemed like . . .
‘Yes,’ said her mother, ‘if they’re pure and fresh.’
telling the people to eat more chocolate to aid the orphans and my
Said the child, ‘Well, that means Hershey’s I guess.’
competitors . . . would have said I was taking advantage of them.”77
A
204
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
In 1918, Hershey endowed the school with a trust worth $60 local dairy farmers whose coffers and herds had benefited from the
million, the bulk of his personal fortune, a move that effectively company.84 Twelve-hundred Hershey workers participated that day
transferred ownership of the company as well. The story did not and returned again April 6. Each day the plant was closed meant
break, however, until 1923, when New York Times reporter James that 800,000 pounds of milk went unused and that farmers lost
C. Young interviewed Hershey about his decision.78 In addition to $10,000. Farmers, independent workers, and their supporters,
explaining the school and its mission, Young also devoted much numbering 5,000, marched into town that night and gave the
of the story to Hershey himself, “short, stout, ruddy-faced, gray- strikers until 1 p.m. to disband. The strikers decided to comply
haired, with an easy smile,” “old-fashioned,” his “vigor and alertness” at the last minute, but by that time it was too late. The farmers
defying his sixty-six years. Young concluded that much good could stormed the plant and attacked the strikers, forcing them “to run
be said of the town and school and the benefit to the boys, “but, a gauntlet of two rows of farmers and independents who struck
best of all, think of an orphan boy having for his guardian a man and slashed at them and kicked them on their way past.” The
who will give him as much chocolate as
crisis lasted a week but did not involve
he can eat.” Subsequent coverage of the
police, and there was some feeling that
“The quality of the product,
trust endowment appeared during this
Hershey’s management had not only lent
time in the Wall Street Journal, the Herald
some support to the farmers but had also
[Milton Hershey] said, spoke
of Gospel Liberty, Current Opinion,
not stepped in to stop the violence.85
McClure’s, and the Chicago Defender,
A vote called by the National Labor
for itself, so he focused
an African-American newspaper that
Relations Board rejected the CIO two
criticized Hershey for limiting his
to one, and the company considered
on
the
values
behind
it,
selection criteria to poor white boys.79
itself “vindicated.”86 Despite that victory,
A few years later, when the company
however, the strike permanently ended
combining Mennonite
went public, the story re-surfaced in
Hershey’s “utopian innocence.”87
principles shared by his
Success Magazine, in another New York
While the 1937 sit-down strike
Times story in which Milton Hershey’s
appears to contradict Hershey’s image as
family, his employees, and the the kindly Chocolate Man, in truth, most
School endowment was favorably
compared to the philanthropic works
in the area were still strongly loyal
surrounding communities with people
of the Rockefellers, Mrs. Russell Sage,
to him during the strike and opposed
James B. Duke, Julius Rosenwald, and
at the time. The violence tied to the
state-of-the-art tools of the time itstrike
Carnegie, and in Fortune, which also
was related to the townspeople
included criticism of the selection criteria to create efficiency and economy and farmers who tried to break it up.
and concerns regarding the program’s
Although, by the time of the strike,
perpetuity and lack of experts in
Hershey had long since passed on the
and to uniquely position
foundations and education.80 Although
daily operations of the company to longthe production and promotion term lieutenant William F. M. Murrie,
the stories focused on Hershey, the man
and the town, the connections to the
this story, too, revisited Hershey, the man
of chocolate
Hershey chocolate products were clear.
and the town, as well as the school. As
Another prominent story about
before, Murrie, as president of Hershey
and the Chocolate Town.”
the company and its business decisions
Chocolate Corporation, was quoted,
included the Hershey Chocolate
although the actions of the company
Company’s decision to forgo $1 million in profits in the depth of were credited to Milton Hershey. Indeed, the Christian Science
the Depression. Hershey opted, instead, to benefit the consumer Monitor ran only one image, and that was of Milton Hershey.
by providing a larger candy bar at the same price of five cents, but While the strike garnered national attention at the time, the vote
made with the same, now less expensive, ingredients. Concern over against the CIO soon dissolved national interest in Hershey labor
its dealers also led the company to this decision. Reporter Chapin relations, enabling Hershey, Pennsylvania, to return to the business
Hoskins noted that the Hershey company explained it this way: of cultivating its reputation as a quiet, clean company town.
“The company has built up a fortunate position in the trade, and it
For a man so directly tied to a large manufacturing concern,
would certainly be foolish to destroy it during the present period, its reputation, and its fortune, it is surprising that there were so
through avarice.”81 Hoskins also reminded readers about Milton few stories about Milton Hershey during his forty-five-year career
Hershey—the man and his investment in the town: “They are the as the Chocolate King. This was partly due to his travels. As noted,
direct expression of the faith and generosity of an unusual business he spent a great deal of time away from the town so he might
personality.”82 To forgo $1 million, Hoskins concluded, “seems to not have been available to reporters. It was also due to, in part,
me a much more striking expression of the spirit which appears to the company’s privately held status, which did not change until
move all the Hershey undertakings. Regardless of what happens 1927. Another reason concerned his Mennonite background,
later, it stands out as one of the unique business achievements of which may have discouraged him from speaking about himself to
the present time.”83
the media. Nevertheless, his image and persona as the Chocolate
Hershey made the national news again, however, when John King were so closely tied to the chocolate business, the stories that
Lewis’s then-named Committee for Industrial Organization did appear in the national news reflected an inextricable and largely
(CIO) came to Hershey in early 1937 and founded a chapter of positively portrayed tie connecting Hershey the man, the product,
the United Chocolate Workers of America. The workers organized the company, and the town, regardless of Hershey’s official position
a sit-down strike April 2, shutting down operations, which hurt in the company at the time.
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
205
M
ennonites have been characterized as being frugal,
shrewd, clannish, deferential, authoritarian, covertly
humorous and covertly emotionally expressive, and
practical.88 Milton Hershey was alternately characterized as
disdainful of others, intimidating, dismissive, egotistical, energetic,
tenacious, simple (i.e., leading a life of simplicity), lonely, shrewd,
impatient, hot-tempered, patient, thoughtful, tidy, and humorous
(although he did not tell jokes or appreciate word play or others’
attempts at humor). He would always accept blame if faced with
his own failure; he did not worry about things; and he loved
children.89
Still, Hershey was also an industrialist of his time, a captain of
industry, albeit one cut from a slightly different cloth. One person
interviewed by Wallace commented, for example, that Hershey
“once said he knew how to make money; hence, he insisted on
making it for the good of the people, who seemingly did not
know how to make money.”90 And, in the aftermath of the strike,
another recalled that Hershey “thought the strike gave him good
advertising. ‘Do yourealize [sic] how much it would have cost me?
I got between $500,000 and a million dollars free advertising on
that strike.’ That was afterwards.”91 Still, recalled another, beyond
his philanthropy, Hershey was always “thinking of the people
who help to build this town. Take all the things he did, outside
of the school itself, practically all the other things were done for
the people who worked with him. He had two motives: provide
education, and provide for the people who worked for him. He
was loyal to his people. He was hurt very deeply when they had the
sit-down strike.”92
Milton Hershey founded his company in the midst of rising
consumerism and consumer activism. Given his immediate,
runaway success in the eating chocolate market, however, he
did not focus on national consumer advertising as did most
national food manufacturers of the time. Nor did he conform to
a model of contemporary industrial company towns.93 Instead, his
approach was to eschew paid placement in consumer media for
promotional strategies that conveyed deeper and more complex
ideas to employees, consumers, and visitors about the value of
quality, community, harmony, purity, and social compassion,
which, in turn, reflected well upon the company, the brand, the
town, and the man. The quality of the product, he said, spoke for
itself, so he focused on the values behind it, combining Mennonite
principles shared by his family, his employees, and the surrounding
communities with state-of-the-art tools of the time to create
efficiency and economy and to uniquely position the production
and promotion of chocolate and the Chocolate Town. That is, by
examining archival evidence overlaid with trade and mainstream
press coverage, this article presents evidence of Hershey’s intention
to employ public relations over advertising and to do so in a
framework informed by the values of a faith he honored but did
not embrace.
NOTES
1
Bradley Johnson, “100 Leading National Advertisers,” Advertising Age, June
20, 2011, 8. The list focuses on “measured media” per Kantar Media, WPP, as
opposed to “unmeasured” (e.g., social media) as estimated by Ad Age.
2
Lawrence M. Hughes, “‘Never Felt Need to Advertise’: Hershey Chocolate
Manufacturer Not Opposed to Ad Use; Keeps Founder’s Policy,” Advertising Age,
Dec. 27, 1947, 31.
3
Hughes, “‘Never Felt Need to Advertise,’” 31. Staples was Milton Hershey’s
hand-picked successor, groomed during his twenty-five years at the company’s sugar
206
plant operations in Cuba to continue Milton Hershey’s work upon the founder’s
death in 1945 at age eighty-eight. The Havana operations demanded much of the
same invention that Hershey, Pennsylvania, did, including building a railway, a
town for employees and their families, and state-of-the-art plant facilities, such as
the “largest sugar refinery in Cuba.” See also Thomas R. Winpenny, “Milton S.
Hershey Ventures into Cuban Sugar,” Pennsylvania History 62, no. 4 (1995): 491502.
4
Up to this point, consumer chocolate manufacturing in the United States
focused on cocoa for drinking and cocoa and bar chocolate for baking.
5
W. Greg Rothman, “The Chocolate King,” Cigar Aficionado, Dec. 1, 1996,
http://www.cigaraficionado.com, accessed Jan. 20, 2011.
6
Hershey did not consider all chocolate companies to be his competition,
only those that made chocolate bars. So it was, for example, that Hershey began
supplying chocolate coatings to many other candy concerns, including Reese and
York, which the company later acquired.
7
Hershey Timeline, http://www.hersheys.com/our-story.aspx#/timeline,
accessed June 22, 2011.
8
Milton S. Hershey on advertising. Box 11, F26: On advertising from Wm.
Kishpaugh, March 8, 1955 [photocopy of typewritten notes]. Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box 11, Unit 199,
Shelf 6.9A. Sources cited in this study from the Wallace collection and from other
sources within the Hershey Community Archives, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, adhere
to the style requested by the archives.
9
Card #25: from Mike Harber [spelling unclear] Oct. 9, 1954; Card #26: from
A.T. Heilman, Oct. 16, 1953. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community
Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
10
Richard Ohmann, Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn
of the Century (London: Verso, 1996), 81-117; James Playsted Wood, The Story of
Advertising (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1958), 193-209.
11
In addition to works already cited, see Joël Glenn Brenner, The Emperors of
Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars (New York: Random House,
1999); Michael D’Antonio, Hershey: Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth,
Empire, and Utopian Dreams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); Deborah
Cadbury, Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World’s Greatest Chocolate
Makers (New York: Public Affairs, 2010); John Bradley, Cadbury’s Purple Reign: The
Story Behind Chocolate’s Best-Loved Brand (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2008);
Roy Bongartz, “The Chocolate Camelot,” American Heritage Magazine, June 1973,
http://www.americanheritage.com/content/chocolate-camelot, accessed Jan. 20,
2011; Mark Weiner, “We Are What We Eat; Or, Democracy, Community, and the
Politics of Corporate Food Displays, American Quarterly 46, no. 2 (1994), 22750; Mary D. Houts and William J. Murray, “From Workshop to Publication—
Progressive Era Industry and Its Legacy,” The Social Studies 93, no. 3 (2002), 12123; Peter J. Depuydt, “‘In the Hearts of Those Whom You Serve’: The Teachers
for West Africa Program,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History & Biography 134, no.
1 (2010), 59-76; Thomas R. Winpenny, “A Father Who Distracts and a Family
that Underfinances: The Early, Bittersweet Career of Milton S. Hershey,” Essays in
Economic & Business History 9 (1991), 12-19; Thomas R. Winpenny, “Corporate
Lobbying Was No Match for the Tide of History: Hershey and Coca-Cola Battle
the U.S. Sugar Tariff, 1929-1934,” Journal of the Lancaster Historical Society 111,
no. 3 (2009/10), 114-24; Jonathan Klick, and Robert H. Sitkoff, “Agency Costs,
Charitable Trusts, and Corporate Control: Evidence from Hershey’s Kiss-Off,”
Columbia Law Review 108, no. 4 (2008), 749-838; Ellen M. Heffes, “Finding the
Sweetest Spot,” Financial Executive 19, no. 9 (2003), 34-39; “Company CFOs
Who Promote Innovation,” Financial Executive 23, no. 8 (2007), 44-47; and Robin
Couch Cardillo, “Higher Ground,” Financial Executive 16, no. 1 (2000), 28-31.
12
See, for example, Jay Newell, Charles T. Salmon, and Susan Chang, “The
Hidden History of Product Placement,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media
50, no. 4 (2006), 575-94; “Product Placement Triumphs,” Marketing Research,
Sept. 1, 2009, 5.
13
Romi L. Burks, and Larry C. Boles, “Evolution of the Chocolate Bar: A
Creative Approach to Teaching Phylogenetic Relationships Within Evolutionary
Biology,” American Biology Teacher 69, no. 4 (April 4, 2007), 229-37.
14
See, for example, James C. Young, “Hershey, Unique Philanthropist: His
Munificent Gift to Orphan Boys a Long Cherished Idea,” New York Times, Nov.18,
1923; “Chocolate Plum,” Time, Jan. 4, 1932, 43.
15
The Hershey Company retained few financial records of promotional efforts
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
while Milton Hershey was alive. In fact, not until the company went public in 1927
do even intermittent financial records appear for the company as a whole.
16
Wallace had a doctoral degree in English from the University of Toronto
and, for many years, chaired the English department at Lebanon Valley College
and served as the editor of “Pennsylvania History” for the Pennsylvania Historical
Association. He never published the Hershey biography, although some of his
findings appeared in a children’s book, Katherine Shippen and Paul Wallace,
Milton S. Hershey (New York: Random House, 1959). See “Biographical Note” in
the Paul Wallace Research Collection, 1700-1974, Hershey Community Archives.
Wallace’s notes consist of typed and handwritten index cards and typed transcripts
of interviews. His note card files are intact and remain sorted in the same categories
he established. Together, the notes and transcripts comprise ten cubic feet in the
archive. As noted above, citations in this study from the Wallace collection employ
the reference format he used, which was not consistent throughout his notes.
17
To parallel the external communication efforts that paid placement
advertising would have otherwise addressed, this study focuses on external pieces.
Internal messages, while probably best studied via the lens of the tightly controlled
company organ, Hershey News, are beyond the scope of this study.
18
Carolyn Kitch, “‘A Genuine, Vivid Personality’: Newspaper Coverage and
Construction of a ‘Real’ Advertising Celebrity in a Pioneering Publicity Campaign,”
Journalism History 31, no. 3 (2005), 122.
19
Lisa Mullikin Parcell and Margot Opdycke Lamme, “Not ‘Merely an
Advertisement’: Purity, Trust, and Flour, 1880-1930,” American Journalism 19, no.
4 (2012), 98.
20
Winpenny, “A Father Who Distracts and a Family that Underfinances,” 1219; D’Antonio, Hershey, 10-25.
21
D’Antonio, Hershey, 25-45. The secret, according to D’Antonio, was to
cook the milk long enough and slowly enough to eliminate the water and bacteria.
Later, Hershey would perfect this system to include higher milk content. The result
was a creamier caramel that wouldn’t stick to the teeth and that appealed to people
concerned about wholesome foods. (p. 55).
22
Ibid., 45-52.
23
Ibid., 58-59.
24
Ibid., 66-67. The exhibit was by J. M. Lehmann of Dresden.
25
Ibid., 89-91.
26
Ibid., 68. Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, and Quakers were included
here. See also Cadbury, Chocolate Wars. In describing the brothers’ approach
to business, Cadbury explained, “Quaker idealism lay at the very heart of their
business goals” (p. 42).
27
Bradley, Cadbury’s Purple Reign, 4-52.
28
See, for example, Bradley, Cadbury’s Purple Reign; and Cadbury, Chocolate
Wars.
29
Bongartz, “The Chocolate Camelot.”
30
“There is more of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate sold than all other domestic
brands combined,” Confectioners’ Journal, February 1906. Note: Hershey
Community archivists pulled and photocopied these artifacts from the Library of
Congress to include them as part of their collection for visiting scholars. Not all
images, however, are documented with complete source citations, so the references
here include as much information as could be determined for each image.
31
Hershey began building in 1903. One year later, the first homes were
built—complete with central heating, indoor plumbing, and electricity, which were
“luxuries” to many of the families who bought them. By 1905, the factory was fully
operational. See D’Antonio, Hershey, 116-19.
32
T.J. Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of a Modern America,
1877-1920 (New York: Harper, 2009), 197-200.
33
Calvin Redekop, Mennonite Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1989), 174-80. After World War II this profile shifted from agriculturally
based businesses to urban/industrial.
34
Card #222: from Black [no first name, possibly Bert], n.d. Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199,
Shelf 7.3A.
35
Box 11, F15: Milton Hershey – Religion. From Rev. Herbert Miller, Nov.
24, 1954 [typewritten notes]. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community
Archives, Accession #97004, Box 11, Unit 199, Shelf 6.9A.
36
Box 11, F15: Milton Hershey – Religion. From Dr. H. H. Hofstetter,
Oct. 1, 1954 [photocopy of typewritten notes]; From Sam Clark, Jan. 27, 1955
[photocopy of teletype-looking notes]. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box 11, Unit 199, Shelf 6.9A.
37
Card #456: from Dr. W. D. Horne, May 16, 1954, p. 2. Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199,
Shelf 7.3A.
38
Fred Kniss, Disquiet in the Land: Cultural Conflict in American Mennonite
Communities (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 29. Kniss also
lists among these changes Sunday school, revival meetings, and church architecture.
New technologies and approaches to management and promotion, he argued,
emerged “through the conservative religious filters” of contemporary revivalists such
as Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday.
39
Insight into those values can be found, for example, in an essay by Elias
Hershey, Milton’s paternal uncle and a bishop of the Reformed Mennonite Church.
He also taught Milton when he attended the Derry Church school. Box 12, F7:
Reformed Mennonite Church. “Why I am a Reformed Mennonite” by Bishop
Elias Hershey, Sunday, Feb. 13 [no year], YMCA [photocopy of carbon of speech].
Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004,
Box 12, Unit 199, Shelf 7.1A. Note: After the first paragraph on page 4 of the
speech transcript, it is noted that the stenographer tired, so that the remainder of
speech is recorded by memory, not verbatim.
40
Redekop, Mennonite Society, 196, 210. Here “hard work” is not historically
grounded in the idea of a Protestant work ethic but in historical experiences of
Mennonites in “gaining acceptance and toleration of landowners and authorities on
the basis of their hard and creative work.”
41
Card #32: From George Nischlag, June 9, 1955. Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199,
Shelf 7.3A.
42
Box 11, F26: Interview. On advertising from Wm. Kishpaugh, March 8,
1955.
43
See, for example, “The Lancaster Caramel Company,” Confectioners’ Journal,
1893, 7; “Caramels Only,” Confectioners’ Journal, December 1893, 49.
44
“The Lancaster Caramel Company,” 7.
45
“Caramels Only. Factories of Lancaster Caramel Co.,” Confectioners’
Journal, 1895, 34. On the use of factories as symbols of success, see Pamela Walker
Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing
(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 96-151.
46
“Not the Oldest Chocolate House,” Confectioners’ Journal, December 1896,
105.
47
“A Step Ahead,” Confectioners’ Journal, February 1906.
48
“Hershey Chocolate Co.” Confectioners’ Journal, 1895, 88.
49
“Summer is Coming!” Confectioners’ Journal, May 1897, 99; “Chocolate!
Have You Tried Hershey’s?” Confectioners’ Journal, November 1897, 85; “Hershey’s
Chocolate Liquor and Sweet Coatings,” Confectioners’ Journal, September 1898,
77; “Hershey’s Chocolate Novelties,” Confectioners’ Journal, January 1899, 100;
“Hershey’s Liquor Chocolate,” Confectioners’ Journal, April 1899; and “Hershey’s
Progress Cocoa,” Confectioners’ Journal, 1900.
50
See, for example, “Hershey’s Cocoa,” Confectioners’ Journal, January 1911;
“Hershey’s Almond Milk Chocolate, Confectioners’ Journal, April 1911; “More
Sold Than All Other Makers Combined,” Confectioners’ Journal, September 1911;
“Hershey’s Cocoa,” Confectioners’ Journal, January 1914; and “Hershey’s Milk
Chocolate Pyramids,” Confectioners’ Journal, February 1914.
51
“?,”Confectioners’ Journal, 1904. The same ad ran repeatedly for the next
few years.
52
“The Reason,” Confectioners’ Journal, August 1906.
53
“A Step Ahead,” Confectioners’ Journal, April 1906.
54
The Food and Drug Administration was created in 1930.
55
“Hershey Chocolate Bar” booklet, n.d. Hershey Community Archives, box
B11, Folder 2. Note: The booklets and brochures are designated by the Hershey
Community archivists as having been produced in the early years of the Hershey
Chocolate Company. It was possible to independently validate that time period
using references within the copy to products, town features, or broader cultural
contexts.
56
Notes from the archives are limited to some comments about Hershey’s
advertising presence in New York City; however, the company is not certain of the
duration or of the penetration of this outdoor advertising initiative.
57
Card #31: from George Nischlag, June 9, 1955.
58
Card #33: from Clayton Snavely, June 28, 1954. Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
207
59
Card #43: about “Advertising: New York” from Clayton Snavely, Jan. 4,
1956. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession
#97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A. Snavely credited O.J. Gude Company
(later, Outdoor Advertising Company) for the advertising.
60
“Mail Pouch,” Confectioners’ Journal, September 1906.
61
See, for example, T.J. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History
of Advertising in America (New York: Basic Books, 1994), and William M. O’Barr,
“A Brief History of Advertising in America,” Advertising & Society Review 11, no. 1
(2010). At one time Hershey’s signature was on the label, a common design of the
time “to show that they were genuine.” Milton Hershey balked at this convention,
though, because he did not want to “give them a five cent bar and my signature
at the same time.” Box 2, F1: John Gallagher interview recorded by shorthand
by Wallace March 3, 1955 at his office, HCC [typewritten notes], p. 5. Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box 2,
Unit 199.
62
Card #28: John C. Mc.Clain, June 29, 1955. Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
“Baker” here refers to the Walter Baker & Company.
63
Card #27: from W. S. Lambie, June 21, 1955. Wallace Research Collection,
Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
64
Box 11, F39: from A.T. Heilman, Dec. 23, 1954 [carbon of typewritten
notes]. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession
#97004, Box 11, Unit 199, Shelf 6.9A. [Original underscore.]
65
Box 11, F39: From George Bartels, March 1, 1955 [photocopy of
typewritten notes]. Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives,
Accession #97004, Box 11, Unit 199, Shelf 6.9A.
66
Ibid. Bartels noted, too, that Milton Hershey was careful to slowly phase
in park entertainment features, such as the stage, so as not to offend his mother’s
sensibilities and beliefs.
67
Card #38: from Joseph Gassler (unclear writing, possibly Cassler), July
16, 1954: Wallace Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession
#97004, Box B13, Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
68
As a vertically integrated operation, Hershey printed its own product labels.
69
“Hershey Chocolate Bar” booklet.
70
“Hershey The Chocolate Town,” n.d. Hershey Community Archives, Box
B11, Folder 3.
71
“Hershey’s Green Grass Jingle Book for Little Folks,” n.d. Hershey
Community Archives, Box B11, Folder 2.
72
“Hershey’s Green Grass Jingle Book for Little Folks.” At first glance, this
seems to be based on the traditional folk song, “And the Green Grass Grew All
Around,” but another song came out in 1912 by William Jerome and Harry Von
Tilzer that used the same refrain but was more of a ballad than a nursery rhyme.
See, for example, http://www.halcyondaysmusic.com/vintage-music-june2001.
php, accessed June 18, 2012.
73
Catherine Sweeney Hershey and Milton Hershey were married for seventeen
years until her death at age forty-two.
74
Redekop, Mennonite Society, 97.
75
Young, “Hershey, Unique Philanthropist.” Additionally, the boys were
allowed to worship in their faith if they wished, but everyone had to come together
for a nondenominational service. Box 11, F15: Milton Hershey – Religion.
From Rev. Herbert Miller, Nov. 24, 1954 [typewritten notes]. Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box 11, Unit 199,
Shelf 6.9A.
76
Card #38: from Joseph Gassler (unclear handwriting, possibly “Cassler”),
July 16, 1954.
77
“Mr. Hershey Gives Away His Fortune,” Fortune, January 1934, 76.
[Original ellipses.] Hershey’s sentiment foreshadowed a criticism of present-day
208
corporate cause marketing and social responsibility initiatives. Yet, in another
indication of Hershey’s own distinction between advertising and promotion, photos
of himself with the boys and photos of the boys at school did appear on bar cards
and in the press.
78
Young, “Hershey, Unique Philanthropist.” No evidence has been found to
indicate the reason for the delay. Hershey Chocolate did not go public until 1927,
though, so it is possible that the endowment had been considered a private, internal
financial decision at that point.
79
“Hershey 6s Are Strongly Secured,” Wall Street Journal, Nov. 20, 1923;
“Chocolates and Orphans,” Herald of Gospel Liberty, Dec. 13, 1923; “This Childless
Multi-Millionaire Makes U.S.A. Orphan Boys His Heirs,” Current Opinion,
January-June, 1924, 28; Edward Mott Woolley, “How Hershey Pays Back His
Chocolate Millions,” McClure’s Magazine, April 1924, 78-82, 84-88; “Hershey’s
Dream a Nightmare,” Chicago Defender, Dec. 1, 1923.
80
Carter Nicholson, “Hershey, the Friend of Orphan Boys,” Success Magazine,
October 1927, 50-51, 118; R. L. Duffus, “Scientific Giving Now Big American
Business,” New York Times, Feb. 2, 1929; “Mr. Hershey Gives Away His Fortune,”
Fortune, January 1934, 72-76, 78, 80.
81
Chapin Hoskins, “‘Why We Passed Up a Million in Profits,’” Forbes, Oct.
15, 1932, 7.
82
Hoskins, “‘Why We Passed Up a Million in Profits,’” 8.
83
Ibid.
84
“M.S. Hershey Dead; Chocolate King, 88,” New York Times, Oct. 14,
1945; “Hershey’s ‘Industrial Utopia’: C.I.O. Union’s Defeat Held Vindication
of Labor Policy,” Special to Christian Science Monitor, May 1, 1937.
85
Bongartz, “The Chocolate Camelot.”
86
“M.S. Hershey Dead; Chocolate King, 88,” New York Times, Oct. 14, 1945;
“Hershey’s ‘Industrial Utopia’: C.I.O. Union’s Defeat Held Vindication of Labor
Policy,” Special to Christian Science Monitor, May 1, 1937.
87
D’Antonio, Hershey, 220. As the company grew, it also grew in diversity,
no longer simply reflecting the Amish and Mennonite cultures of the surrounding
communities, but the broader spectrum of American industry at that time. The
strike, then, according to D’Antonio, was also a symptom of anti-immigration
sentiment.
88
Redekop, Mennonite Society, 100-1. He explained that Mennonites and
non-Mennonites alike would agree with those “stereotypes” and explained that
Mennonites’ humor and expressions of emotions and ideologies are often manifested
within the community, leading outsiders to incorrectly conclude that Mennonites
are “somber” and “unemotional.” According to Redekop, deference to others comes
from Gelassenheit, which also entails deference to God’s will.
89
See file cards under “Anecdotes” and “Character.” Wallace Research
Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13, Unit 199,
Shelf 7.3A.
90
Card #406: From Wallace notes on Breidenstine, Questionnaire. Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13,
Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
91
Box 11, F26: Interview. On advertising from Wm. Kishpaugh, March 8,
1955.
92
Card #395: From Mike Huber [unclear handwriting], Oct. 9, 1954. Wallace
Research Collection, Hershey Community Archives, Accession #97004, Box B13,
Unit 199, Shelf 7.3A.
93
See, for example, “M.S. Hershey, Almost 81, Tells Intimate Details of Life’s
Aims and Achievements,” Special to the Harrisburg Evening News, Sept. 7, 1938.
Hershey was quoted in this article as saying, “‘I could have very easily disturbed
real estate holdings and values in the towns close by, by building—as have others
who started an industrial town—a house for every employe [sic] and requesting the
employe [sic] to live therein.’”
Journalism History 38:4 (Winter 2013)
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