Summary

Black and white, silver gelatin photograph of a silver nitrate processing room at the Kodak Australasia factory in Abbotsford, Victoria, 1952.

The Abbotsford factory was initially the site of the Austral Plate Company, created by Thomas Baker, a pharmaceutical chemist, in 1884. After Baker went into partnership with accountant, John Rouse, to develop the photographic manufacturing company, Baker and Rouse Pty Ltd, they proposed a merger with Eastman Kodak in 1907. In 1908, Australian Kodak Limited was formed and evolved to become what is known today as Kodak Australasia. The Abbotsford site remained the base for the operations of Kodak Australasia until the late 1950s.

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 image consists of an interior view of a room in the factory involving silver nitrate processing. It is a processing area. The walls of the room are tiled, with tiled troughs. In one trough there are ten metal cylinders with tubes and open bowls with liquids in them. Another trough has glass jars upturned. To the left of the image is a tiled bench with containers, some have a white substance in it. To the right and along a wall with windows, there is a bench and trough with equipment including rubber gloves, tubes and glass jars.

Physical Description

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

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