Jonathan Yardley reviews a new biography of Hershey, who, of course, made his fortune in caramel:
He called the company Lancaster Caramel. By the early 1890s, it was in a 450,000-square foot building in Lancaster, then in satellite factories elsewhere in Pennsylvania and in Chicago. He had more than 1,400 employees and a burgeoning bank account. He also had, by the turn of the century, the sense that caramel’s day was done, that milk chocolate — successfully produced in Europe and England but not in the States — was the next big thing. He sold Lancaster Caramel for $1 million, bought up about 4,000 acres between Lancaster and Harrisburg, and began to build his factory and town.
(I’ve blogged on Hershey before.)