Summary

Black and white silver gelatin photograph of the Kodak Australasia factory site in Abbotsford, Victoria, circa 1940s.

The photograph features staff sitting on the lawns in the gardens surrounded by garden beds and mature trees near the 'Yarra Grange' house. Two women are sitting in the foreground next to the rock border of a garden bed and one woman appears to be reading a book. A group of men are sitting nearby, on the other side of a path. To the right, seated next to a tree, is a smaller group of staff. Buildings and a fence are visible in the background. This area was close to the canteen where staff took their breaks.

Yarra Grange was originally the home of Thomas Baker. In 1884 he established the Austral Plate Company on this site, where he made photographic plates.This company was later owned by Thomas Baker and John Rouse in 1894, under the partnership name Baker and Rouse. In the first decade of the 20th century the company and factory site was bought and operated by Kodak. In the late 1950s Kodak moved from Abbotsford to a new factory site at Coburg on the northern outskirts of Melbourne.

Kodak manufactured and distributed a wide range of photographic products to Australasia, such as film, paper, chemicals, cameras and miscellaneous equipment. Its client base included amateur and professional photographers, as well as specialist medical and graphic art professionals who used photography, x-ray and other imaging techniques.

This photograph is part of the Kodak collection of products, promotional materials, photographs and working life artefacts collected from Kodak Australasia in 2005, when the Melbourne manufacturing plant at Coburg closed down.

Description of Content

The photograph features the gardens of a factory site. Staff are seated on the lawns of the gardens surrounded by garden beds and mature trees. Two women are sitting in the foreground next to a the rock border of a garden bed, and a group of men are sitting nearby to the left on the other side of a path. To the right, near a tree is another small group of staff. Buildings and a fence are visible in the background.

Physical Description

Black and white gelatin photograph, printed on light weight Velox paper, landscape format with a white border.

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