Summary

Photograph of the interior of the Silver Nitrate building at the Kodak Australasia factory in Abbotsford, after a fire swept through in July 1952. Vats of burnt nitric acid crystals can be seen in a fire damaged room, while two Kodak staff members view the damage.

On the same day as the fire, a flood about 12 feet high from the Yarra River submerged the company's timber yard, coke storage and maintenance workshops, causing £2,000 of damage to the timber.

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

Interior view of a room with charred wooden beams supporting the ceiling, evidence of recent fire. Vats with charred contents are laid out in several lines on tables. To the far left of the image are two men in overalls and white caps. There is a piece of corrugated aluminium sheeting lying across a row of barrels. There are shattered panes of glass to the rear of the image, revealing a brick wall.

Physical Description

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

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