Hershey’s career in design started in 1928 working at Murphy Body in Los Angeles, he went on to work for a variety of car makers including Hudson, General Motors from 1932-1949 as head of the Pontiac and Cadillac studios as well as overseas for Opel and Vauxhall, Packard, and Ford Motor Company working as head of Ford design during the early-mid 1950s. He then moved onto Kaiser-Frazer to head their industrial design department until 1963 when he joined Rite Autotronics as vice president of design until his retirement in 1972. In his very descriptive oral history, Hershey begins by talking about his time at Murphy Body designing custom bodies under designer Frank Spring. He goes on to talk about his short time at General Motors in 1928 in the Pontiac studio, before returning to Murphy for a few years working on bodies for Marmons, Peerless, and other vehicles. He describes his return to General Motors as head of the Pontiac studio and his “Silver Streak” design, which at the time of the oral history was still being utilized in a modified format on Pontiac cars. He discusses the design atmosphere at GM and details his close working relationship with Harley Earl, particularly after Hershey was put in charge of design outside the U.S. and was working overseas at Opel and Vauxhall. After serving in WWII, he rejoined GM as head of the Cadillac Studio, but soon left to start his own business in New Mexico, Winkler Mill Craftsmen. Hershey talks about returning to Detroit in the early 1950s, first at Packard, and then at Ford where he was head of the Ford studio and was part of the Thunderbird design team. He discusses the difficulties of working in Ford design at the time and his leaving to start an industrial design department at Kaiser-Frazer. He speaks fondly of his time at Rite Autotronics from 1963 until his retirement in 1972, during which time he won several awards from the Industrial Design Society. He wraps up his oral history speaking about his favorite job working in the Pontiac studio at GM, as well as career highlights, and his design philosophy.

Collection contains 6 cassettes, 6 compact discs, 6 WAV files, 6 MP3 files, 2 diskettes, 2 loose transcripts, and 2 bound transcripts. Uploaded July 26, 2021.