Several local candymakers celebrated National Candy Day by giving away confections to worthy recipients, the Cambridge Chronicle reported in October 1924.
C.A. L’Esperance, of L’Esperance Confectionary, “sent 200 bags of candy to the inmates of the Holy Ghost Hospital for Incurables and ten pounds of chocolates to the nurses of the institution. Mr. Fiske, of the Fisk candy store in Harvard Square, following his annual custom of the past few years, observed National Candy day by distributing 150 boxes of candy to the inmates of the City home.” The Chronicle suggested that the city’s candy companies work together in the future to coordinate giveaways for National Candy Day (which the paper noted was then the second Saturday in October; now named as Nov. 4), especially since “Cambridge is said to be the largest candy producing city in the country.”
History Cambridge gives guided tours Wednesday and Sunday that highlight the rich and complex history of candy making in Cambridge. These tours are in partnership with the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, which History Cambridge works with to offer tours and classes on a variety of aspects of Cambridge history. At its peak in the mid-20th century, the city boasted 66 candy companies, including Squirrel Brand, Daggetts and Necco, and Main Street was nicknamed “Confectioners’ Row.” What made Cambridge such a candy capital, and how did the confectionary industry and its workers shape the city’s history?
The local candy industry began in the 1760s, when an Irish immigrant named John Hannon built a chocolate mill on the Neponset River in Dorchester. The introduction of the steam engine in the 1840s created a boom in the market, and many companies moved from Boston to Cambridge, where land was cheaper. Over the course of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, wealthy Cambridge families maintained ties to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean; many of the city’s white elites not only enslaved people of African descent on their estates in and around Cambridge, but also profited from the enslavement of vast numbers of people in Jamaica, Antigua and other islands. The proceeds from this enslaved labor helped to fund private homes and public institutions throughout the city, and continuing economic ties to the Caribbean sugar economy contributed greatly to the rise of Cambridge as a candy-making hub.
During its first eight decades, the candy industry, like so many others in the Northeast, was made up mostly of British and German immigrants, many of whom had worked in food production in their home countries. In the mid-1800s, these workers largely transitioned to other industries and legions of Irish immigrants fleeing from the Potato Famine took their place. A generation later, at the end of the 19th century, the Irish were in turn replaced by arrivals from Italy, Portugal, Lithuania and other parts of Eastern and Southern Europe – as well as Barbadians and other Caribbean immigrants seeking to escape from their islands’ collapsing economies. In the early 20th century, these immigrants from abroad were joined by Black migrants leaving the South to find better socioeconomic and political conditions in the North, including the racially integrated schools of Cambridge.
The beginning of the end for Cambridge candy came with the rise of the big national candy conglomerates, namely Hershey’s, Nestle and Mars. These companies understood that distribution had changed – producers needed to ally themselves with the big grocery chains, and they needed to be more centrally located to ship nationwide (and even internationally). Success in the industry became less about who made the best candy and more about who could get to market first. Independent confectioners were hard pressed to match the conglomerates’ distribution levels, national marketing efforts and the slotting fees they pay to have candies front and center of the register at the grocery store.
Today, the only remaining large-scale candy company in the city is Cambridge Brands, producers of Tootsie Rolls and Junior Mints, whose chocolate aroma wafts through the air around its manufacturing plant outside of Kendall Square. A number of smaller candy shops, such as Spindler in North Cambridge, carry on the city’s confectionary traditions. Participants in History Cambridge’s August tours will learn about these shifts in the candy making industry, including how these independent confectioners fill an increasingly popular niche market for artisanal chocolate made with fair-trade ingredients and unique flavors. All are welcome on these tours, but registration is required. We also invite residents to explore our class and tour offerings at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education for the fall term.
History Cambridge started in 1905 as the Cambridge Historical Society. Today we have a new name and a new mission. We engage with our city to explore how the past influences the present to shape a better future. We recognize that every person in our city knows something about Cambridge’s history, and their knowledge matters. We listen to our community and we live by the ideal that history belongs to everyone. Throughout 2026, we are focusing on the history of West Cambridge. Make history with us at historycambridge.org.
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