On October 13, 1945, American industrialist and philanthropist Milton Snavely Hershey died at Hershey Hospital in Hershey, Pennsylvania, at the age of eighty-eight. Having helped transform milk chocolate from a luxury product into an affordable American staple through large-scale production, Hershey devoted much of his later life and fortune to philanthropy and community-building. His death, coming weeks after the formal end of World War II, marked the close of an era for the model industrial town he had helped create.
The cornerstone of Hershey’s legacy was established in 1909, when he and his wife, Catherine, founded the Hershey Industrial School—now the Milton Hershey School—as a tuition-free residential school for orphaned boys. In 1918, following Catherine’s death, Hershey quietly placed the bulk of his fortune, including his holdings in the Hershey Chocolate Company, into a permanent trust for the school. Today, he is remembered not only for building one of America’s best-known confectionery businesses, but for permanently linking that commercial success to education, stability, and opportunity for children in need.
