Summary

Postcard featuring a colour illustration of the New York World Fair held in New York, USA in 1939, titled 'Constitutional Mall and the Lagoon of Nations'. The postcard was sent on 21 July 1939 by a senior Kodak Australasia executive (probably Chief Managing Director Mr Edgar Rouse) to Kodak Australasia employees Mr & Mrs Clarke at the Kodak factory in Abbotsford. The postcard was sent while Mr Rouse was on a business trip in 1939 to the Eastman Kodak headquarters at Rochester, New York in the USA,

Newly appointed as the Chief Managing Director after the previous incumbent, his father Mr John 'JJ' Rouse, had died in 1938, Mr Edgar Rouse was visiting the USA to consult with Eastman Kodak executives at the head office in Rochester, New York. While away on his trip, Mr Rouse sent a number of postcards to Mr and Mrs Clarke and their young son Harry Clarke. When he returned to Australia, Mr Rouse also gave a number of other shipboard souvenirs to Harry Clarke.

Mrs Clarke was the chef for the directors' dining room at the Kodak factory, and Mr Clarke worked first in silver recovery and later as a gardener in the grounds. The couple and their son Harry lived on site at the Kodak factory in Abbotsford, Melbourne from 1938 until 1952, residing in the 'Yarra Grange' cottage. This cottage which was the original home of Thomas Baker who founded Baker and Rouse, a photographic manufacturing company that was later bought out by Kodak Australasia, and which established the first manufacturing works on the Abbotsford site.

Physical Description

Postcard with colour illustration of the New York World Fair with a white border and text at top and bottom in the border. Reverse has a stamp, postmark and handwritten correspondence.

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