In December 1939, a new corporation, the Morart Gravure Company, was formed and absorbed both Morart Paper and Morart Rotophot corporations. The principal officers remained intact: Maurice J. Moriarty as President, Charles H. Barr as Treasurer, and Charles F. Moriarty as Clerk. The company remained under the Moriarty family's financial control.
Later, on November 21, 1940, the Secretary of State granted a corporate charter to Multicolor Gravure Corporation.
Morart Gravure would concentrate its work on single-color productions, while Multicolor Gravure, as its name implies, would produce high-grade paper gravure by combining colors.
The company remained in its current mill buildings on North Bridge Street, near the Old County Bridge, leading from Holyoke to South Hadley Falls. The plant continued to be leased from the city of Holyoke. The proximity to rail and freight lines, as well as to paper and paper-converting suppliers, along with low energy costs, made Holyoke a welcome site for its business.
In researching the story of Morart over its 37-year existence, I noted the relative absence of Help Wanted ads in the newspapers, an anomaly amongst the many manufacturers. Morart paid and treated its employees well. There was very little turnover at the plant, as many workers remained until retirement. Yet, the corporation was quite profitable. In 1944, the company's sales were reported at $356,866, with a profit of $48,371.
Morart Gravure won the top prize at the Seventh Modern Plastics Competition held in New York in 1948. Morart had created original designs to decorate laminates produced by the General Electric Corporation.
The company continued its growth by leasing 6,000 square feet of space in the Holyoke Belting Co. building on Winter Street. Morart needed the additional storage space to accommodate further manufacturing on North Bridge Street.
In 1950, Ellamor Realty Corp., Morart Gravure's real estate arm, purchased the 60,000-square-foot mill it occupied on Bridge Street from the Holyoke G & E. Sussex Hats Inc. received a notice to vacate the 12,000-square-foot space it rented, which Morart planned to use. Three businesses occupying the other two sections of the complex were not affected by Ellamor Realty's purchase of this portion of the building. Morart Gravure continued to lease 20,000 square feet in a separate building near the river owned by Holyoke G & E.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): including Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
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