Bryce Eishold
Moe’s industrial heritage will be put on show next month in an exhibition by the Moe and District Historical Society as the organisation looks back on 100 years of manufacturing in the town.
Moe Camenbert Industries, Focus Photo Laboratories, Sunicrust Bakeries, Glovers, Saxton Timber Mills and the Moe Dairy Co-Operative will be just some of the 16 businesses featured in the month-long Made in Moe exhibition.
Historical Society vice president Graham Goulding said the exhibition was a credit to the tireless work of several volunteers who researched newspapers, spoke to former employees and business owners and collated dozens of photos in the process.
“Moe was always a little agricultural town basically until World War II but after then, the SEC boomed and in the process created a huge population increase for the town,” Mr Goulding said.
He said the state government promoted decentralisation of industries after WWII.
“I was told that Moe was the fastest growing municipality in Australia at the time and that created a huge pool of female labour,” Mr Goulding said.
“There were a lot of housewives sitting at home with not much to do because all their husbands were working at the SEC.
“Glovers came during the war using female labour, Givoni, which did textiles, came after the war during the ’60s, the footwear store was the same and so there was a lot of women working in these factories.”
Hundreds of volunteer hours have gone into the project which will go on show on September 12 and is expected to bring back fond memories for the town’s older folk and interest the minds of younger generations.
“There was the dairy co-op, Valley Built which used to build garages and metal work, the timber mills because they were into moulded timbers as well as cutting and Focus Laboratories which made photography equipment.
“I could keep going – Sunicrust Bakeries which went back to Melbourne, two footwear companies we identified and Glovers which started off during the war making military equipment but finished off doing fashion gloves so they’ll all be on show.”
Information panels on each of the 16 businesses will be featured during the exhibition with graphic work covered by a grant from Latrobe City Council.
“This exhibition will cover a phase in the town’s history that hasn’t had much written about it – there’s not much information apart from the bigger factories,” Mr Goulding said.
“We’ve been able to contact some of the people who used to run the businesses, but for some like one of the footwear companies that operated in Langford Street, we’ve only found a couple of employees and they don’t remember much – it’s all just slipped away.”
The exhibition will take place in the Moe Library from September 12 to October 12.
