The History of the Milton and the Boy Statue

In 1957, the Milton Hershey School Alumni Association met and considered how to pay homage to a man who impacted their lives as profoundly as Milton S. Hershey. At this point, it had been a little over a decade since Mr. Hershey’s death, and many of them had known him personally or had interacted with him in one way or another. With the school’s big 50^th anniversary celebration just two years away, the idea of a life-sized statue was brought to the table. While many agreed it would be a great project, nobody quite knew where to begin.

Eventually, the plans did come together, and over 1,000 alumni contributed to creating the statue we now know as Milton and the Boy. The statue itself was designed by famous sculptor Walker Hancock who had worked as one of the “Monuments Men” recovering art looted by Nazis during WWII. It was Hancock’s goal to convey appreciation, respect, and admiration in the simple pose of both the boy and Mr. Hershey.

The attention to detail the sculptor focused on can often be missed at first glance. In order to get the image just right, Hancock talked to alumni and looked at many pictures of Milton Hershey to get certain details correct. For example, the alumni mentioned how his pants always had a sharp crease, which is visible in the statue.

For the boy, however, Hancock did not use any specific boy’s face to create the statue. Instead, he wanted every boy at the school to see their face reflected in the boy. So, in a way, the boy in the statue is a composite of all the students that attended the school. He also added details to the boy, such as shoelaces laced differently, a belt missing one of its loops, and an uneven collar. These details add to the complexity and timelessness of the image.

Lastly, the alumni came up with the inscription, “His Deeds Are His Monument; His Life Is Our Inspiration.” With these words, the sculpture was complete, and officially presented for Founders Day in 1960. The sculpture was placed at Senior Hall (now Catherine Hall). Eventually, when Founders Hall was built, the statue was moved to the rotunda, where it still stands today.

Over the years, this image has endured as an important symbol of the school and its thousands of graduates. One alumnus, Robert Beitzel ’41, wrote a beautiful account of the statue’s creation that was gifted to the MHS archives. On the last page, he mentions that the enduring legacy will be in how many people will look at the statue in the years to come and say, “How big was that man?” and he would answer, “Very, very big.”

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