Kodak Heritage Collection Newsletter September

KODAK HERITAGE
COLLECTION
NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2015
WELCOME
Welcome to the September 2015 Kodak Heritage Collection Newsletter. This year has brought many
exciting new developments for the Kodak project, as you will read below. As always, there has also been
plenty of progress on the Collection work, which we are delighted to share with you. We hope you enjoy
reading the newsletter, and welcome any feedback that you might have. We also thank you for the
contribution you have made to the Collection this year.
WHAT’S NEW
The Kodak project team have had some changes in staff this year, and will be having more changes as the
year progresses, because we have embarked on a major expansion of the Kodak project. This has been
made possible by a generous grant from the Baker Foundation, which follows on from a grant provided by
the Foundation in 2013 and some earlier funds from Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd.
The Baker Foundation and the Kodak Heritage Collection
The Baker Foundation has close links and a long history with the content of the Kodak Heritage Collection,
which incorporates the Baker & Rouse Collection. The Foundation was established by the respected
photographic industrialist and philanthropist Thomas Baker, his wife Alice and her sister Eleanor Shaw.
Photograph - Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, Alice Baker & Thomas Baker, circa 1910s
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Baker’s pioneering and highly successful photographic glass plate manufacturing business, established in
Melbourne in 1884 and later conducted as the Baker & Rouse Pty Ltd partnership with John J. Rouse,
merged into what is now known as Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd in 1908, providing the foundation for Kodak’s
long and influential involvement in the Australasian photographic industry.
Having achieved great success in their business, Thomas and Alice Baker were generous philanthropists,
contributing to charities such as the Red Cross and the Limbless Soldiers. During the first few decades of
the 20th century, the Bakers, along with Eleanor Shaw, supported medical research at the Alfred Hospital,
ultimately establishing the Baker Institute. They also provided the financial backing for other worthy causes,
through the Baker Foundation.
The Bakers’ philanthropy has now come full circle, with their financial gift benefiting their own history at
Museum Victoria. The Baker’s legacy to Kodak Australasia and the broader photographic industry includes
pioneering local photographic manufacturing, and attaining technological excellence and innovative staff
relations. These achievements are evident in the artefacts in the Kodak Heritage Collection, where the
Bakers’ legacy lives on over one hundred years after Thomas Baker embarked on his manufacturing career,
and are also evident in the memories of working life that many former Kodak staff have shared with us.
There is therefore great synergy in the support that Museum Victoria has received from the Baker
Foundation for the Kodak Heritage Collection, as this support draws together the Bakers’ key activities of
photographic manufacturing and philanthropy, and we are most grateful for the Foundation’s very generous
gift.
New Staff
As part of this generous funding from the Baker Foundation, we were able to extend Hannah Perkins for
another 18 months in her capacity as full-time Assistant Collection Manager. Hannah has been doing a
wonderful job and we are glad she can continue on with us. We were also able to welcome Jen McNair to
the team as a part-time Assistant Collection Manager, to support Hannah with the registration, re-housing
and image capture of collection material.
Jen, a trained photographer, also joins us as a part-time Image Capture Officer for a number of months.
As reported in the December 2014 edition of this Newsletter, Jen has already worked on the Kodak
Heritage Collection, image capturing a collection of Kodak glass plate negatives and nitrate negatives. Jen
has previously been contracted as an Image Capture Officer for other projects at the Museum and has most
recently worked as a registration officer on the History & Technology Image Collections. As a professional
photographer, Jen brings a wide range of skills and a particular enthusiasm to her new Kodak project role
and we are very happy to have her on the team to assist us.
Also as part of our newly funded project, we have recently appointed a part-time Photographic and Paper
Conservator for six months, Noni Zachri, to assist existing conservation staff to preserve selected parts of
the collection. The main focus of their work will be on photographs, albums, glass plates, negatives, slides,
transparencies, audio-visual material, factory signs, posters, documents and textiles.
Our new Image Capture Officer, Jen McNair, will photograph or scan the items that are receiving
conservation attention, as well as other fragile or complex items. The image capture will enhance the
preservation of the collection and also enable public access to it through facilitating its publication on our
Collection Online website.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Finally, towards the end of the year when all of this foundational work has taken place, we will be appointing
a Multi-Media Producer to create a number of thematic and biographical stories using audio, film, and still
visuals from the collection, which will then be published on our Collection Online website. Keep your eye out
for more on all of these exciting happenings in future editions of this Newsletter!
Photographic and Paper Conservator Noni Zachri at work, and seen here with Senior Curator Karina Palmer in the
Conservation Laboratory.
A Farewell
At the start of April this year, we farewelled Lesley Alves, who had worked as the Kodak Oral Historian
since August 2013. Thank-you Lesley for your great contribution to the Kodak project and the wonderful
rapport you built with our Kodak community! Lesley enjoyed her time immensely with the project and it was
sad to see her finish up. She has enjoyed a well-deserved holiday overseas in recent months. In her time
with us she recorded almost 30 interviews with former Kodak staff and relevant experts, and also wrote 10
thematic essays and 19 biographical essays.
The raw historical data embedded in these interviews, as well as in those recorded by other Museum staff,
will provide a great foundation for our project team’s ongoing research and will also be available for external
researchers in future. We are now moving into a consolidation phase as we work to bring our content alive
through multimedia stories for our Collections Online website, and also focus our efforts on registration and
preservation work in the next 18 months. However, please note that other project staff are continuing to
record oral histories on a smaller scale, as required.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS
In the last ten years we have completed 47 recorded oral history interviews, with the majority of these
interviews being conducted by Lesley Alves in the last few years. The interviewees have mostly been
former staff, as well as some other individuals with close links to Kodak. We have also had additional
informal interviews with dozens of other people.
While our oral history interviewing has slowed down recently as other work has become a priority, we are
still undertaking interviews with selected people around particular themes to fill gaps in our knowledge. If
you feel that we have missed an important story or individual, please let us know!
The names of our interviewees to date are as follows:
Louis Shane Allan
Val Bell
Harry Clarke Jnr
Lindsay Arnold
Marie De Camara
Elizabeth Delahunty
Darren Ash
Yvonne Cameron
Norm Ducksbury
Gordana Duzdevich
John Garrett
John Allen
Steve Brain
Freda Cuthbert and
Thelma Sneazwell
Brian Flynn
Ken Gifkins
Graham Francis
Ron Gordon
John Harvey
Doug Howden
John Kerr
Peter Harvey
Roy Hughes
John Lemcke
Jim Healy
Peter Hunter OAM
Trish Lobb
Bruce and Dot McKay
& Cassandra Twomey
Noel Monteith
Betty Radstake
Murray Walton
Greg McKibbin
Michael & Lucy Mikedis
Brian Phillipson
Noel Swan
Walter Whitworth
Lothar Ploss
Michael Symonds
Dr Will Fraser
Peter and David
Habersberger
Pat Hogan
Dr Gerry Johnston
Alan McKay, Jean Burt &
Katherine McKay
John Mitcham & Ed
Woods
Roy Porter
Prof Brian Tress
We have some short biographical essays about some of our interviewees on our Collections Online
website. We will be adding to these in the coming months, and next year we will be producing short
multimedia excerpts from the recorded interviews and will also make these available on Collections Online
for the public to listen to. Keep your ears out for these!
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE COLLECTION
New Acquisitions
A recent, generous acquisition from the grandson of James Gault, a former Kodak employee, has provided
a wonderful new contribution to early Kodak Australasia history. A small collection of 15 items including
photographs, letters and a ceremonial trowel - the acquisition is a real treasure-trove.
Six of the photographs show informal images of Thomas Baker at work – something rarely captured on film.
He is shown, with several staff, laying the first bricks in the construction of Building 4 at Abbotsford on 30
April 1928. The ceremonial trowel used to lay these bricks has also been donated, and it is inscribed with a
dedication to Miss B Kingston, who laid the very first brick and who is thought to have been secretary to Mr
Baker. Miss Kingston was a good friend of James Gault, and at some point she passed the trowel on to Mr
Gault, and eventually his grandson inherited it and the associated photographs.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Miss B Kingston laying the first brick for Building 4, with Thomas Baker looking on, at Abbotsford, 30 April 1928.
Brick laying ceremony for Building 4, with Thomas Baker (at far right) and colleagues, at Abbotsford, 30 April 1928.
Five other photographs show interior views of the factory, possibly the Mounting and Framing Departments
– very rare documents of the early Kodak factory in Abbotsford indeed. Interior shots of people at work at
Abbotsford are uncommon, and most of the existing Abbotsford factory images in the Museum collection
date from after the 1940s. The lack of early photographs of the factory leads Senior Curator Fiona Kinsey to
wonder if perhaps in the first few decades of the 20th century the company was too busy establishing itself
to think of recording its own history or the staff were too busy working to be photographed - unlike in the
later period at Coburg when numerous official photographs were taken documenting the factory, albeit
mostly of its exterior or workers in non-light sensitive areas, as most of the manufacturing and packaging
was done largely in darkroom conditions and couldn’t easily be documented. These particular photographs
show staff demographics, working conditions and technologies used in the factory, and are an important
resource for understanding the factory operations.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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The donor’s grandfather James Gault appears in most of these interior views of the factory. He was
originally a photographic artist who later worked in various positions with Kodak, probably from about the
early 20th century until about 1941, when he left to start a business with his son Robert who was an
electrical engineer. He rose through the ranks at Kodak and was held in good regard by the company. In
1913 he was rewarded 1 pound for an innovation to stop machinery in the case of an accident, which made
the factory safer.
Photograph showing Kodak workers, possibly in the Mounting Department,
at Abbotsford, circa 1928. James Gault is shown, with arrow pointing to him.
Glass plate workspace, Abbotsford
In 1928, along with 9 other senior staff, Mr Gault was left 300 pounds by Kodak managing director Thomas
Baker after he died. Although many staff received a legacy, James Gault's years of service and the esteem
he was held in no doubt contributed to the generous amount that he received. When he left the company,
Mr Gault and his son were invited to a lunch with the managing director Edgar Rouse in December 1941, to
wish them good luck in their new endeavour on behalf of the company directors.
As you can see, this new acquisition adds a fascinating and important dimension to the Kodak story, and we
extend our thanks to the Gault family for their great contribution to the collection.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Recent Registrations
Trade Literature
At the end of March 2015 Fiona, Hannah and Jen embarked on a project to sort, register and re-house a
section of the Kodak trade literature collection, which includes instruction booklets and manuals. Five
different pallets were identified as holding this material - some consisted entirely of trade literature while
others needed to be sorted and separated further. Our rough estimates suggest there are around 4,000
items to register.
To help sort this material we used a large number of blue plastic tote boxes, to divide the material into
subject groups – which included, for example, medical imaging, cameras, and motion picture equipment. On
day one of sorting we had 10 totes, each with a different subject name. About 8 days later we were at the
end and had a grand total of 67 totes, 34 subjects and 3 pairs of tired feet.
The totes completely covered our work table and were stacked at varying heights. It looked so impressive
that a colleague passing by referred to it as a sea of trade literature - a very organised sea, we might add.
The “sea” of trade literature
Examples of early catalogues in the sort.
Now we are in the midst of registering individual items and have already registered about 1,000 documents.
This work is being done in-line with the rest of Museum Victoria’s trade literature collection, which uses
‘Cutter Numbers’ - a library classification system - to group the collection via company names. The Cutter
numbering system further sorts these groups into primary subjects and finally date range. This is a helpful
way for people to physically look through this large and complex collection, but we also use key words and
other descriptions to assist users find material in our computer database and online. We also barcode the
items so they can be found electronically using our standard Museum location system.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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To help get through this large quantity of material we are fortunate to have a small group of really wonderful
volunteers working with us, some of whom are dedicated Kodak volunteers while others have been working
on the Museum’s trade literature collection anywhere from ten to twenty years at our Scienceworks
collection store, mainly cataloguing engineering and agricultural trade literature. From barcoding and image
capture to data enhancing records, their hard work is helping us open this collection up to a wider audience.
TL62076
TL62050
TL62155
TL62138
We already have the first set of trade literature up on Museum Victoria’s Collections Online website, with
more and more being uploaded in the coming months. The first subject groups include medical imaging,
graphic arts and camera accessories. This is a very satisfying moment for all of us and will hopefully interest
a lot of you.
Jen and Hannah have been able to draw on the detailed work from a past volunteering project – the Kodak
advertising scrapbook project from 2012-2014 - to pin down specific date ranges for undated trade literature
publications and products. It’s fantastic that a volunteer project so recently completed is already bearing
fruit.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Photographs
Late last year, Assistant Collection Manager Hannah Perkins registered and re-housed a range of images
featuring mid-twentieth century Kodak trade show exhibitions and displays.
Images feature Kodak’s stalls and booths all over Australia, as well as some of the in-store show rooms
from wholesale and retail operations. The images, available now on Museum Victoria’s Collections Online
website, show the far-reaching and diverse promotional and marketing activities of the organisation. The
audiences ranged from school children to medical professionals and manufacturers.
MM 139693, Children Looking at the Sawyer
Viewmasters, Queensland Centenary Industries Fair,
Brisbane, May 1959
MM 139679, Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, Exhibition Stand,
Royal Adelaide Exhibition, Mar - May 1947
MM 139714, Photograph - Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, Booth in Exhibition Grounds, circa 1930s
Do you recognise this booth? We are trying to find the location of this event so if you have any information,
please contact us at: [email protected]
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Film Wallets
Hannah also registered over 150 film wallets and envelopes that are available to view online. They are
colourful reminders of a time period when people eagerly awaited the arrival of their processed prints. The
most striking examples date from the 1930s and demonstrate how Kodak used these packaging items to
promote their brand.
Images of women were very popular on these wallets, with the ‘Kodak Girl’ positioned by Kodak as an important
mascot or symbol to suggest the ease and accessibility of photography to the masses – a symbol which drew on
traditional understandings of gender roles.
And of course there were the usual Kodak colours, as well as promotions for major events.
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Family was also an important concept in Kodak packaging design. Couples, mothers, and children appeared
frequently, either using the cameras or enjoying their prints. The wallets promoted photography as an activity to share.
VOLUNTEER PROJECTS
We are lucky to have a small, dedicated crew of volunteers making excellent in-roads into research and
improving access to different parts of the Collection.
We have had assistance from many former employees in identifying the people, places and dates in some
of our photographs, in particular Neil Bucher and other former Kodak engineers and Powerhouse workers
(pictured below), and Pat Hogan for our accounting material.
Kodak volunteers, standing, left to right: Noel Wood, Neil Bucher, Les Kennett
Seated, left to right: Frances (Andy) Anderson, Arthur Jarvis
Copyright: Museum Victoria, Photographer: Jennifer McNair
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Dana Kells, our volunteer collection management assistant, has finished up with the project to take up fulltime employment. We congratulate her on her work and wish her the best for her career. In her time with us
she helped barcode and re-house hundreds of items and has recently been very busy image capturing our
trade literature collection.
Our Business Archives volunteer, Claire Liersch, also found full time employment and has wrapped up her
project on the Kodak Heritage Collection. Thanks to her hard work we now have a more detailed breakdown
of the contents of the early share certificate books and have fully data enhanced records for all of the early
Kodak balance books which we will use in future research into Kodak’s early business history.
New Research Volunteers
This year Senior Curator Fiona Kinsey recruited 4 new volunteers to assist in a research capacity. Later in
the year, once their research has been completed, they will assist staff in writing up some short essays
which will be published on the Collections Online website.
Sebastian Fuentes is researching the topic of x-ray and medical imaging, and its connections to Baker &
Rouse and Kodak Australasia. An important source for this research is a number of advertising scrapbooks
in the Kodak collection that were previously documented by volunteers in 2012-2014, and that are
dedicated specifically to the subject of radiology products sold by Kodak Australasia.
Sebastian will also consult trade literature, photographic and medical journals and refer to the oral histories
recently recorded by Lesley Alves with key Kodak radiology experts. Another volunteer, Rebecca Bolden
has assisted Sebastian with researching some of the medical scrapbooks
Volunteers Sebastian Fuentes and Rebecca Bolden, with Assistant Collection Manager Jen McNair (at back).
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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Rebecca Bolden and Camielle Fitzmaurice have started work on indexing the Kodakery and Kodak News
company newsletters in the collection, which were issued monthly and cover several decades from 1968 to
the early 2000s. Camielle and Rebecca will be listing staff names, events, and products from each edition in
a spreadsheet so that we can more easily access the rich resource of Kodak history that is contained in
these newsletters. The newsletters really are a treasure trove of information, and provide a fuller picture of
individuals who we have already interviewed for oral histories or who have donated collection material, and
will also help us develop a timeline of products. This work is expected to take several years to complete.
Camielle and Rebecca at work
Kodakery, May 1982
Camielle is also assisting Fiona to research each of the Kodak staff members featured in a collection of 36
caricatures that were drawn by former Kodak engineering contractor George Hoven in 1974, and donated to
the Museum by him in 2013. Fiona and Camielle will be drawing on information in an oral history interview
with a former long-serving Kodak engineer, Roy Hughes, who knew all the faces in the caricatures and was
also himself rendered in one of George Hoven’s caricatures. They will also use information from other
former staff, as well as data identified in the Kodakery and Kodak News.
Finally, Carissa Goudey has been working to
uncover information on Thomas Baker and his early
enterprises including the Baker & Rouse business,
and the early years of the Kodak Australasia
company. As well as using heritage collection and
library material from the Museum, she has been
busy trawling through historical resources from
other places including the Fitzroy Library, the State
Library of Victoria, Public Records Office and the
National Library of Australia via Trove online. She
has consulted Sands & McDougall Directories, City
of Collingwood Rate Books, MMBW maps, Victorian
Government Gazette and photography journals.
Pictured opposite: Volunteer Carissa Goudey
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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A CALL OUT FOR VOLUNTEERS
As we reported last year, we have digitised some of the 16mm motion picture films from Kodak, including
footage of the Coburg site and its manufacturing processes, as well as a number of TV commercials. We
are looking for former Kodak employees to help us interpret some of the footage of the Coburg factory and
manufacturing processes.
If you or anyone you know would like to volunteer to watch and describe these Kodak films, please contact
Assistant Collection Manager Hannah Perkins at [email protected]
CORRECTION
Thanks to those people who wrote in and corrected us on an error in our last issue. The man pictured below
has been identified as John Laing, not Graeme Brown as was previously stated. We always welcome and
encourage your feedback so please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Cheers John!
COLLECTIONS ONLINE WEBSITE
We now have around 3,000 Kodak items published on the Museum’s Collections Online Website, which has
recently been re-designed and re-launched. Take a look at the new website and let us know what you think!
http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/
Also, can you identify anyone in the photographs on the website? Contact us if you can help! Please email
us at: [email protected]
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666 Melbourne VIC 3001 Australia
Telephone +61 3 8341 7777
Website http://museum.vic.gov.au/
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