In Chocolate We Trust: The Hershey Company Town Unwrapped (Contemporary Ethnography)

In Chocolate We Trust takes readers inside modern-day Hershey, Pennsylvania, headquarters of the iconic Hershey brand.A destination for chocolate enthusiasts since the early 1900s, Hershey has transformed from a model industrial town into a multifaceted suburbia powered by philanthropy.At its heart lies the Milton Hershey School Trust, a charitable trust with a mandate to serve "social orphans" and a $12 billion endowment amassed from Hershey Company profits.The trust is a longstanding source of pride for people who call Hershey home and revere its benevolent capitalist founder-but in recent years it has become a subject of controversy and intrigue. Using interviews, participant observation, and archival research, anthropologist Peter Kurie returns to his hometown to examine the legacy of the Hershey Trust among local residents, company employees, and alumni of the K-12 Milton Hershey School.He arrives just as a scandal erupts that raises questions about the outsized power of the priva