The Morton Salt Company was started in Chicago by Alonzo Richmond in 1848. At that time, the company was known as Richmond & Company, Agents for Onondaga Salt.  The business was aquired by Joy Morton in 1889 and after several other acquisitions and a couple of minor name changes, it finally became know as Morton Salt Company in 1910.

At that time in history, one of the prevailing problems with commercial salt was that it was easily affected by humidity and moisture, which made it clump together and difficult to pour. To address the problem, Morton Salt began adding magnesium carbonate (later changed to calcium silicate) to the salt they produced to act as an anti-caking agent.

Shortly after this change, Morton Salt introduced the world to the famous Morton Salt girl (the Umbrella Girl) and slogan, “When it rains, it pours.”  The slogan was adapted from the proverb, “It never rains but it pours.” Both the little girl image and slogan first appeared in 1914 in a series Good Housekeeping magazine advertisements.  You can learn more about Morton history, their slogan and the little girl in their History of the Umbrella Girl.

The slogan has remained unchanged during that time, but the Morton Salt girl has appeared as six different versions — typically updated to reflect the current times. The billboard provided here is based on the version of the Morton Salt girl that was used from 1941-1956.

Save and Print the Billboard

To use the image below on your own layout, simply save the image, and print it on a color printer.  Typically, to save an image from the Web, right-click your mouse on the image and select “Save As”, “Save Target As” or something similar.  The specific process for saving the image may be slightly different depending on your individual Internet browser and setup.

Note that when printing anything in color for your layout, some types of printers work better than others.  For example, the inks on images printed with an ink jet printer tend to run when then they come into contact with moisture (like glue or Dullcote).  Color laser printers, and some photo printers tend to work best.