Senor Hershey: The Cuban Sugar Town

Before Milton S. Hershey came to Cuba in 1916, the country had almost nothing. Hershey came to a small city, where there was nothing, no sugar cane, no nothing. As the residents remember it, the town was a waste land.

But everything changed when Hershey fell in love with the country, the people and the riches of sugarcane. The American entrepreneur, humanitarian and philanthropist was determined to help the country and its people.

For that, he built a state of the art sugarmill, rebuilt the town and built a railway in the heart of the Island. But what Hershey is remembered the most is his treatment towards the employees. Unlike many industrialists, Milton loved his employees, and that is one of the reason that even after so many years of his death, people who have worked for Hershey still remember him as the good man he was, and he lives in their memory.

Milton S. Hershey died from pneumonia in 1945, at the age of 88 years old. However, he left a legacy behind like few other industrialists from the time of the great Industrial revolution.

Since his death, his operation in Cuba has changed hands two times, and is now seized by the government. The sugar work might be in defunct, but the memory of the person who changed and touched so many lives will go on forever. In this short documentary, people from Cuba talk about the influence of Milton S. Hershey and his legacy.

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