Morton Salt

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Morton Umbrella Girl
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Morton Umbrella Girl

Morton Salt is a United States company specializing in the production of salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use.

The company began in Chicago, Illinois in 1848 as a small sales agency. In 1910, the business, which had by this time become both a manufacturer and a merchant of salt, was incorporated as the Morton Salt Company.

At present the business, still based in Chicago, is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt.

In 1999 Morton Salt was acquired by the Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas Company, Inc. and operates as a division of that company today.

Morton Salt's distinctive hand-drawn logo features the "Morton Salt Girl," a young girl between the ages of seven and nine standing in the rain with an opened umbrella, and scattering salt behind her from a cylindrical container of table salt. The company's logo, developed in 1914, and its motto, "When it rains, it pours" (developed in 1911), were developed to illustrate the point that Morton Salt was free flowing, even in rainy weather. Originally, the company had added magnesium carbonate as an absorbing agent to ensure that its table salt was free flowing; calcium silicate is now used instead for the same purpose.

Morton's sister company in Canada is Windsor Salt, and both companies are owned by Rohm and Haas.

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