page_title: Necco
section_title: 1900s
hierarchical_section_title: Necco / History / 1900s
caption_attribution_description: English: Necco factory, Cambridge, 2004, featuring the Necco water tower, painted (in 1996) to look like a roll of Necco Wafers. Picture taken shortly before the water tower was repainted by Novartis in a new design.
context_page_description: Necco was an American manufacturer of candy created in 1901 as the New England Confectionery Company through the merger of several small confectionery companies located in the Greater Boston area, with ancestral companies dating back to the 1840s.
  In May 2018, Necco was sold for $17.33 million to Round Hill Investments LLC, run by billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos; Round Hill Investments subsequently re-sold the company in July 2018 to Spangler Candy Company.
  The company was best known for its namesake candy, Necco Wafers dating back to 1847. Other prominent products have included its seasonal Sweethearts Conversation Hearts, and brands such as the Clark Bar, Haviland Thin Mints and Sky Bar.
context_section_description: Two other confectionery companies, Ball and Fobes, founded by confectioner Daniel Fobes in 1848, and Bird, Wright and Company, a confectionery company based in Boston and founded in 1856, joined forces with Chase and Company in 1901 to become the three members of the original Necco family. The three confectionery firms then moved into a newly constructed manufacturing plant in the Fort Point–South Boston Waterfront area of Boston, Massachusetts, one year later and became the largest establishment devoted entirely to confectionery production in the United States.
  The Boston Wharf Company developed the 1902 complex of four five-story buildings at 253 Summer Street and 11-37 Melcher Street. BWC named the adjacent streets Necco Court, Necco Street, and Necco Place. In 1907, 5 and 6 Necco Court were added behind the existing complex, connected by a four-story interior bridge. With nearby rail and water transportation, BWC specialized in shipment and storage of sugar and molasses. The Domino Sugar factory was also located nearby.
  Success prompted the company, in 1906, to introduce a profit sharing plan. Necco continued its production while the confectionery industry continued to boom through the turn of the century. Around the same time, businessman David L. Clark began experimenting with his own candy creations in his home outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began selling the Clark candy bar for five cents and shipping his creation to soldiers fighting in World War I. At the same time, Charles Miller started a business manufacturing and selling homemade candy in the Boston area. Clark's creation and Miller's Mary Jane quickly become two of the most popular candy creations in the country.
  In 1927, Necco moved into a new factory on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, which was then the largest factory in the world, devoted entirely to candy, as seen in a photograph of a 1928 Necco Wafers truck.
  Necco continued its dominance of the candy-manufacturing business through much of the first half of the 20th century. In 1942, the U.S. Government requisitioned a "major portion of the production of the wafers, during World War II since the candy doesn't melt and is 'practically indestructible' during transit," This continued until 1945.
  For several years, Necco was the first, and exclusive, licensed distributor of Rolo candy in the US. After losing the license to Hershey, for a time Necco marketed an identical product called "Milk Chocolate Caramel Roll".
  Necco, still a family-run business in 1963 but having financial problems, was acquired by United Industrial Syndicate of New York. In 1978, after several reorganizations and seven company presidents, Domenic Antonellis was named its CEO, a role he would play for nearly 30 years.
  From the end of the war through the 1990s, Necco continued to acquire small candy companies throughout the United States and Europe, and with those companies, the rights to manufacture their trademarked candy bars. It acquired nearby Page & Shaw in 1960. Wisconsin's Stark Candy Company, which was founded in 1939, was acquired in 1988. The acquisition of Stark's Sweethearts, combined with Necco's existing Sweet Talk line of candies, made Necco the leading manufacturer of candy "conversation" hearts. In 1999, Pittsburgh-based Clark Bar America, Inc. was purchased, and by 2000 the company had 1200 employees.
caption: Former Necco factory on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featuring a water tower painted to look like a roll of Necco Wafers.
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