Austrian-born Leo Hirshfield opened a tiny candy shop in New York City. Taking full advantage of his confectioner’s background, Hirshfield personally blended, cooked, and peddled a variety of products, including an individually wrapped, oblong, chewy, chocolate candy that quickly became a customer favorite. Affectionately named after Hirshfield’s five-year old daughter, Clara, whose nickname was “Tootsie,” Tootsie Rolls propelled Hirshfield’s modest corner store into a burgeoning candy enterprise that has evolved in little more than a century into the multinational corporation, Tootsie Roll Industries.