Maurice Dior

Alexandre Louis Maurice Dior (1873 – 9 December 1946) was a French industrialist and the father of grand couturier Christian Dior and French Resistance member Catherine Dior.

Maurice Dior was born in Normandy and came from a family of industrialists who were former farmers from Savigny-le-Vieux, on the border between the Calvados and Manche departments.

Together with his cousin Lucien Dior, a future member of parliament and minister, he took over the management of a chemical company specializing in fertilizer, founded in 1832 by Louis-Jean Dior. It was situated in Saint-Nicolas, not far from Granville.

In 1898, at the age of twenty-six, he married nineteen-year-old Madeleine Martin. They had five children: Raymond in 1899, then Christian in 1905, Jacqueline in 1909, Bernard in 1910, and Ginette, known as Catherine, in 1917.

Working with Lucien, Maurice strove to make the family firm prosper. In 1905, its capital reached 1.5 million francs. The decision to establish the company headquarters at the Rue d'Athènes in Paris demonstrates this prosperity. The company's success was buoyed along by innovations and the diversification of its activities: the Diors were the first people to produce sulphuric acid for phosphate fertilizer. The family also owned phosphate plants in the departments of Meuse and Ardennes.

In 1912, the family firm adopted the name of "Dior Fils & Cie" (Dior Sons & Co) and became a . Its capital rose to four million francs heralding a period of prosperity that was to last for around twenty years. The Diors opened factories in Brittany - in Landernau, Rennes and Saint-Marc, a town not far from Brest that was to give its name to the famous washing powder created a few years later. In 1923, Maurice and Lucien Dior's firm became a public company.

...
Wikipedia