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Female employees of Milton Hershey's Lancaster Caramel Company, Lancaster, PA, circa 1899.
Credit: Courtesy of the Hershey Community Archives
After candy business failures in Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and New York City, Milton Hershey finally found a foothold in Lancaster, Pennsylvania selling caramels from a pushcart. Within a decade, Hershey's business enabled him to buy machinery to mass-produce chocolate. In 1900 he sold his Lancaster Caramel Company to rivals for the majestic sum of $1 million dollars.