Imprimerie Charaire

The Imprimerie Charaire (1872 - 1972) was a printing firm in Sceaux, France, and was active for about a century. Bought on August 1, 1872, by Michel Charaire (March 8, 1818 - 1907), the Imprimerie Charaire became the largest employ in Sceaux (then a town of 5,000 inhabitants south of Paris). Charaire's son Émile (1843 - 1902) worked alongside his father, helping the printing firm succeed. By 1900, it was the ninth-largest printing house in France by number of publications. The Charaires bought modern rotating printing presses which allowed them to increase their production to nearly 80,000 sheets a day. The Charaires insisted on treating their employees well (although they only paid them 4.35 Francs a day while a comparable job in Paris might pay as much as ten francs a day). The Charaires also improved life around town and treated their employees well. During their time as the owners of the print shop, the Charaire's workers on went on strike once and it lasted only three hours. The Sociéte Parisienne d'édition, founded by the Offenstadt brothers, bought the Imprimerie Charaire in 1923. The Offenstadt family had the firm taken from them during World War II due to their Jewish heritage and it published several pro-Hitler pieces during the Occupation. After the Liberation, it is unclear of the Offenstadt family regained the firm or not. The printing house was absorbed by the Ventillard publishing house at the end of the 1960s and gradually declined until it was finally closed in 1972.