Summary

Black and white glass plate negative of the exterior of the Kodak Australasia factory in Abbotsford, Victoria, circa 1930s. It has strips of perforated white tape applied as a mask, indicating the position of a print.

The photograph features factory buildings and a chimney to the left, and a garden setting with garden beds, trees, lawn, and tennis courts bordered by a fence to the right of the view. The foreground of this photograph shows the staff gardens, with staff pictured sitting on garden benches in front and behind the tennis court fence. This area was close to the canteen, where staff took their breaks. By 1948, this garden area had been built over with the Glass Plate Building. The low fibro and timber building at left is the maintenance workshops. Behind this the Power House chimney is visible. This was the second chimney and was probably built in the 1930s. The Power House provided all of the power and refrigeration for the Kodak factory. To the right is the Paper Coating Building where photographic paper was coated and photographic emulsions were manufactured. The tank visible on the top of the tower of this building contained distilled water which was used in manufacturing.

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 exterior of a factory. To the left of the image in the background are factory buildings and two chimneys. Dominating the image in the foreground and to the right is a garden setting with garden beds, trees, lawn and tennis court. Staff are sitting on garden benches in the garden in front and behind the tennis court fence. There is a man seated on a bench alone to the right of the image, beneath a large tree.

Physical Description

Black and white silver gelatin glass negative, full plate, landscape format. 3 strips of perforated white tape have been applied to the non-emulsion side.

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