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Milton S. Hershey, age thirty, 1887.
flipFlip to Female employees of Milton Hershey's Lancaster Caramel Company, Lancaster, PA, circa 1899.
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Milton S. Hershey, wearing suit; 3/4 length portrait

Credit: Courtesy of the Hershey Community Archives

A descendent of German and Swiss immigrants who arrived in Pennsylvania sometime in the 1700s, Milton Hershey spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch" and inherited a Germanic propensity for frugality, perseverance, and hard work. At the age of thirty, Hershey was only a year removed from yet another business failure. By the early 1900s he would be the nation's largest producer of milk chocolate.

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