One of the most famous American candies of all time, the Tootsie Roll, was invented by an Austrian immigrant named Leo Hirschfeld
who came to America in the late 1890s. Jews have always played a large
role in candy making of yore, as Tablet magazine explains:
“One hundred years ago, most confections were generic, sold as penny candy from jars on shop counters. They were usually distributed by peddlers, most of them Jewish immigrants from Europe who sold a variety of goods on their rounds. Some of those peddlers arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes they were wearing and an entrepreneurial spirit, learning the candy trade from employers. Candy was a relatively easy thing for a newcomer to make. It did not require significant investment in equipment, materials, or labor, and could be made on a stove top with a few inexpensive ingredients. Ruined batches were cheap failures, and regular production helped move businesses from the kitchens and pushcarts to retail shops and factories. No other immigrant group is as central to the candy trade as Jews.”
Hirschfeld is said to have gone into the trade after learning from his father. Hirschfeld’s story, however, is not without its controversies. The official version as to how Tootsie Rolls started from humble beginnings goes like this, courtesy of Tootsie Roll Industries:
“The Tootsie Roll story began in 1896, when Austrian-born Leo Hirshfield opened a tiny candy shop in New York City. Taking full advantage of his confectioner’s background, Hirshfield hand-crafted a variety of products, including an individually wrapped, oblong, chewy, chocolate candy that quickly became a customer favorite. Sold at a penny apiece and affectionately named after Hirshfield’s five-year old daughter, Clara, whose nickname was “Tootsie,” Tootsie Rolls propelled Hirshfield’s modest corner store into burgeoning candy enterprise that has evolved in little more than a century into the multinational corporation, Tootsie Roll Industries.”
Hirschfeld is said to have arrived in New York Harbor in 1884 by steamship. His father’s trade was candy, so that’s the business he tried to get into, setting up shop in Brooklyn and selling to neighborhood children. To keep each Tootsie Roll clean, Hirschfeld reportedly wrapped each one individually in its signature red and brown wrapper, making the Tootsie Roll the first individually wrapped penny candy.
But what really happened may be more complicated than “official” version from Tootsie Roll Industries and others. Samira Kawash,
a former professor at Rutgers University, lays out in her
candyprofessor.com blog the myths that have shrouded Hirschfeld’s story.
For one, Kawash notes that the inventor’s name, according to city
records, was actually spelled “Hirschfeld,” not “Hirshfield,” as Tootsie
Roll Industries writes it. According to Kawash, Hirschfeld was indeed
the inventor of the Tootsie Roll, but he was far from the lone worker in
bringing the candy to fame; instead, Hirschfeld was working in a
Manhattan-based company called Stern & Saalberg.
Kawash believes that sometime between May 1, 1891 and May 1, 1892, Hirschfeld moved to Manhattan for a job with the company. There, he assigned a half interest to his machine patents—Hirschfeld was first and foremost an inventor—to his employers at Stern & Saalberg. He also invented one of Stern & Saalberg’s top sellers at the time, as Kawash explains:
“Well before Stern & Saalberg started selling Tootsie Rolls, they had another hot item: Bromangelon Jelly Powder. Jelled desserts were all the rage at the turn of the century. Jell-O is the only one we remember, but around 1900 you could have your pick of such temptations as Jellycon, Tryphora, and Bro-Man-Gel-On (also known as Bromangelon).”
Kawash is likely the most notable—and dedicated—researcher on the Hirschfeld found on the web. She writes in her February 3, 2010 entry:
“All the patents, trade-marks, and advertising put Tootsie Rolls in motion between 1907 and 1909. As far as I can gather from the evidence, the invention of Tootsie Rolls in 1896 in Hirschfeld’s little Brooklyn candy store is a myth.”
“Tootsie Rolls made Leo Hirschfeld very rich. He couldn’t have done it on his own, though. Without Stern & Saalberg, an established business with sufficient capital to launch a major candy line, Hirschfeld would have languished in his little Brooklyn house, selling bits of candy to the neighborhood kids. And without Hirschfeld and his inventions, The Stern & Saalberg Company would have gone on as a small candy wholesaler offering ‘Fluffy Mints’ and ‘Diamond’ brand gelatin dessert mix. But The Stern & Saalberg Company went on to become The Sweets Company of America, which in turn became Tootsie Roll Industries, a business today worth well over one billion dollars.”
That fortune came largely because of America’s love of the famed candy. Even during World War II, the Tootsie Roll was one of the few candies that remained in production due to its long-lasting qualities; it was rationed to GI troops sent overseas.
But Hirschfeld never saw the days of that scope of success, and his latter days were quite dark. Despite having invented one of Stern & Saalberg’s most prominent candies, he was unable to move past the position of vice president in the company. He was an inventor, not a businessman, as Kawash notes.
In addition, not all was well in his personal life. His wife is said to have been mentally ill, while he suffered from stomach problems.
Hirschfeld committed suicide in the Hotel Monterey at West 42nd
Street in Manhattan in 1922. The New York Times obituary reads as
follows:
“Mr. Hirschfeld was at his office in the morning, but left early saying that he would not be back that day. He had been suffering considerable pain from stomach trouble and was depressed by separation from his wife, who had been in a sanitarium. He went to his hotel, where had been stopping for some weeks, and from his room sent down word to the clerk asking for a headache remedy, but directed that it should not be sent up for an hour.”
“When the boy finally went to the room, he found Mr. Hirschfeld sitting in a big arm chair near the bed with a heavy caliber revolver in his lap. After the bullet had passed through his head from the front, it smashed the bedpost and buried itself in the wall.”
He left a short note saying that he was “sorry, but could not help it.”
From the obituary, we also learn that he had a daughter, who lived at 87th Street.
But Kawash thinks Hirschfeld’s death is much more complicated than the Times would have it, writing:
“By the time Stern & Saalberg reorganized as The Sweets Company of America in 1917, Stern and Saalberg were both retired. But Hirschfeld, who had been there longer than anyone else, had never risen beyond Vice-President. Others came in and took over the company. Hirschfeld was a brilliant inventor, but maybe not such a great businessman. He was pushed out at The Sweets Company of America, so he ventured out on his own to start fresh with the Mells Candy Corporation. But nothing came of it. Mells was bankrupt by 1924.”
We may never know why Hirschfeld pulled the trigger, or why myths continue about the Tootsie Roll’s humble beginnings (even Tablet magazine featured an article based on Tootsie Roll’s official version, writing “The story of Tootsie Rolls began in 1896, when Leo Hirshfield opened a little corner candy shop in New York City.”). But what is nearly certain is that the candy, largely unchanged for over a century, will continue to be one America’s favorites.
And as of 2010, Jews who keep kosher have been able to enjoy Tootsie Rolls, too.
“It’s the kind of news that rocks the kosher world, as did Oreo’s entry into the kosher marketplace in 1997 or Entenmann’s in 1989,” one blogger wrote in Jewish Journal the day Tootsie Rolls’ kosher status was announced. “There is no shortage of kosher candy—nearly all Hershey’s, Nestle, Mars and Ferrara Pan’s products are kosher, and Jewish brands like Paskesz and Bloom’s do a pretty good job of reproducing kosher versions of all the sweet, chewy, sticky stuff that kids (of all ages) crave. But even with Jelly Belly’s recent entry into the kosher marketplace, nobody comes close to imitating the chocolaty, toothy satisfaction of biting into a Tootsie Roll.”
Asked why the Tootsie Roll went kosher, president of Tootsie Roll Industries Ellen Rubin Gordon told KosherEye: “I am pleased and excited that more people will have the opportunity to enjoy the Tootsie products. Tootsie’s sister products Andes Mints and Cella’s Cherries have been kosher certified for a long time. So this decision was arrived at naturally,” before adding, “There were no ingredient changes to make Tootsie Rolls kosher; the primary change is that production is now supervised by the OU.”
Tootsie Rolls are considered dairy.
Junior Mints, Blow Pops, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Sugar Daddy and Sugar Babies have been kosher-certified by the Orthodox Union since 2011.
“One hundred years ago, most confections were generic, sold as penny candy from jars on shop counters. They were usually distributed by peddlers, most of them Jewish immigrants from Europe who sold a variety of goods on their rounds. Some of those peddlers arrived in the United States with little more than the clothes they were wearing and an entrepreneurial spirit, learning the candy trade from employers. Candy was a relatively easy thing for a newcomer to make. It did not require significant investment in equipment, materials, or labor, and could be made on a stove top with a few inexpensive ingredients. Ruined batches were cheap failures, and regular production helped move businesses from the kitchens and pushcarts to retail shops and factories. No other immigrant group is as central to the candy trade as Jews.”
Hirschfeld is said to have gone into the trade after learning from his father. Hirschfeld’s story, however, is not without its controversies. The official version as to how Tootsie Rolls started from humble beginnings goes like this, courtesy of Tootsie Roll Industries:
“The Tootsie Roll story began in 1896, when Austrian-born Leo Hirshfield opened a tiny candy shop in New York City. Taking full advantage of his confectioner’s background, Hirshfield hand-crafted a variety of products, including an individually wrapped, oblong, chewy, chocolate candy that quickly became a customer favorite. Sold at a penny apiece and affectionately named after Hirshfield’s five-year old daughter, Clara, whose nickname was “Tootsie,” Tootsie Rolls propelled Hirshfield’s modest corner store into burgeoning candy enterprise that has evolved in little more than a century into the multinational corporation, Tootsie Roll Industries.”
Hirschfeld is said to have arrived in New York Harbor in 1884 by steamship. His father’s trade was candy, so that’s the business he tried to get into, setting up shop in Brooklyn and selling to neighborhood children. To keep each Tootsie Roll clean, Hirschfeld reportedly wrapped each one individually in its signature red and brown wrapper, making the Tootsie Roll the first individually wrapped penny candy.
But what really happened may be more complicated than “official” version from Tootsie Roll Industries and others. Samira Kawash,
a former professor at Rutgers University, lays out in her
candyprofessor.com blog the myths that have shrouded Hirschfeld’s story.
For one, Kawash notes that the inventor’s name, according to city
records, was actually spelled “Hirschfeld,” not “Hirshfield,” as Tootsie
Roll Industries writes it. According to Kawash, Hirschfeld was indeed
the inventor of the Tootsie Roll, but he was far from the lone worker in
bringing the candy to fame; instead, Hirschfeld was working in a
Manhattan-based company called Stern & Saalberg.Kawash believes that sometime between May 1, 1891 and May 1, 1892, Hirschfeld moved to Manhattan for a job with the company. There, he assigned a half interest to his machine patents—Hirschfeld was first and foremost an inventor—to his employers at Stern & Saalberg. He also invented one of Stern & Saalberg’s top sellers at the time, as Kawash explains:
“Well before Stern & Saalberg started selling Tootsie Rolls, they had another hot item: Bromangelon Jelly Powder. Jelled desserts were all the rage at the turn of the century. Jell-O is the only one we remember, but around 1900 you could have your pick of such temptations as Jellycon, Tryphora, and Bro-Man-Gel-On (also known as Bromangelon).”
Kawash is likely the most notable—and dedicated—researcher on the Hirschfeld found on the web. She writes in her February 3, 2010 entry:
“All the patents, trade-marks, and advertising put Tootsie Rolls in motion between 1907 and 1909. As far as I can gather from the evidence, the invention of Tootsie Rolls in 1896 in Hirschfeld’s little Brooklyn candy store is a myth.”
“Tootsie Rolls made Leo Hirschfeld very rich. He couldn’t have done it on his own, though. Without Stern & Saalberg, an established business with sufficient capital to launch a major candy line, Hirschfeld would have languished in his little Brooklyn house, selling bits of candy to the neighborhood kids. And without Hirschfeld and his inventions, The Stern & Saalberg Company would have gone on as a small candy wholesaler offering ‘Fluffy Mints’ and ‘Diamond’ brand gelatin dessert mix. But The Stern & Saalberg Company went on to become The Sweets Company of America, which in turn became Tootsie Roll Industries, a business today worth well over one billion dollars.”
That fortune came largely because of America’s love of the famed candy. Even during World War II, the Tootsie Roll was one of the few candies that remained in production due to its long-lasting qualities; it was rationed to GI troops sent overseas.
But Hirschfeld never saw the days of that scope of success, and his latter days were quite dark. Despite having invented one of Stern & Saalberg’s most prominent candies, he was unable to move past the position of vice president in the company. He was an inventor, not a businessman, as Kawash notes.
In addition, not all was well in his personal life. His wife is said to have been mentally ill, while he suffered from stomach problems.
Hirschfeld committed suicide in the Hotel Monterey at West 42nd
Street in Manhattan in 1922. The New York Times obituary reads as
follows:“Mr. Hirschfeld was at his office in the morning, but left early saying that he would not be back that day. He had been suffering considerable pain from stomach trouble and was depressed by separation from his wife, who had been in a sanitarium. He went to his hotel, where had been stopping for some weeks, and from his room sent down word to the clerk asking for a headache remedy, but directed that it should not be sent up for an hour.”
“When the boy finally went to the room, he found Mr. Hirschfeld sitting in a big arm chair near the bed with a heavy caliber revolver in his lap. After the bullet had passed through his head from the front, it smashed the bedpost and buried itself in the wall.”
He left a short note saying that he was “sorry, but could not help it.”
From the obituary, we also learn that he had a daughter, who lived at 87th Street.
But Kawash thinks Hirschfeld’s death is much more complicated than the Times would have it, writing:
“By the time Stern & Saalberg reorganized as The Sweets Company of America in 1917, Stern and Saalberg were both retired. But Hirschfeld, who had been there longer than anyone else, had never risen beyond Vice-President. Others came in and took over the company. Hirschfeld was a brilliant inventor, but maybe not such a great businessman. He was pushed out at The Sweets Company of America, so he ventured out on his own to start fresh with the Mells Candy Corporation. But nothing came of it. Mells was bankrupt by 1924.”
We may never know why Hirschfeld pulled the trigger, or why myths continue about the Tootsie Roll’s humble beginnings (even Tablet magazine featured an article based on Tootsie Roll’s official version, writing “The story of Tootsie Rolls began in 1896, when Leo Hirshfield opened a little corner candy shop in New York City.”). But what is nearly certain is that the candy, largely unchanged for over a century, will continue to be one America’s favorites.
And as of 2010, Jews who keep kosher have been able to enjoy Tootsie Rolls, too.
“It’s the kind of news that rocks the kosher world, as did Oreo’s entry into the kosher marketplace in 1997 or Entenmann’s in 1989,” one blogger wrote in Jewish Journal the day Tootsie Rolls’ kosher status was announced. “There is no shortage of kosher candy—nearly all Hershey’s, Nestle, Mars and Ferrara Pan’s products are kosher, and Jewish brands like Paskesz and Bloom’s do a pretty good job of reproducing kosher versions of all the sweet, chewy, sticky stuff that kids (of all ages) crave. But even with Jelly Belly’s recent entry into the kosher marketplace, nobody comes close to imitating the chocolaty, toothy satisfaction of biting into a Tootsie Roll.”
Asked why the Tootsie Roll went kosher, president of Tootsie Roll Industries Ellen Rubin Gordon told KosherEye: “I am pleased and excited that more people will have the opportunity to enjoy the Tootsie products. Tootsie’s sister products Andes Mints and Cella’s Cherries have been kosher certified for a long time. So this decision was arrived at naturally,” before adding, “There were no ingredient changes to make Tootsie Rolls kosher; the primary change is that production is now supervised by the OU.”
Tootsie Rolls are considered dairy.
Junior Mints, Blow Pops, Tootsie Roll Pops, Caramel Apple Pops, Charms, Sugar Daddy and Sugar Babies have been kosher-certified by the Orthodox Union since 2011.
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