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Sweet Company Town in PA

Imagine living in a town where everyone is your coworker: that’s what the folks at some of America’s top companies experienced between 1880 and 1930s when the  “company town” was all the rage.

Take Hershey’s Chocolates as an example. According to a recent piece in Preservation Magazine, Milton Hershey splurged on “well-equipped houses for workers to buy, free education through junior college, and even a zoo.”  Carole Hite Welch, a worker’s daughter, said the town even had a Hershey water company, Hershey electric company, and a Hershey phone company. At least Hershey considered the welfare of his workers, but still, there is something so Twilight Zone about this… 

Read more here. (Photo of Milton Hershey School via Pennsylvania Center for the Book.)   (EH)

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