Manufacturing Identities: Industrial Representations of Australia in Press Advertisements, 1900–69

Robert Crawford^*

Advertisements sell more than the product on offer — they sell a complete ideology. Between 1900 and the 1960s, Australia's advertising industry was involved in a protracted campaign to establish a nation of consumers. This study seeks to illustrate this process through an examination of the rise and fall of the factory image contained in press advertisements during this period. The factory's outward appearance in these advertisements remained largely unchanged. Its meaning, however, was periodically revised, demonstrating the image's symbolic function. From being the face of a stable firm, the factory image grew to symbolise industrial productivity and national development. Through the image of the factory, local advertisers effectively integrated themselves, their wares, and consumerism with the notion of Australian identity. A new identity emerged as the line between national and consumer identities blurred — one that would also claim the factory as an image.
In her seminal study of advertising imagery, Decoding Advertisements, Judith Williamson writes that advertising is more than a mere medium for selling consumer wares — 'It creates structures of meaning'. 1 More specifically, it is the advertiser and the advertising agency that establish these structures of meaning or ideologies. Advertisements provide advertisers with a unique opportunity to project their values and ideas onto the consumer. Every image or idea therefore functions as a deliberate and self-conscious attempt to enhance the advertiser's overall message — whether it is extolling a product, a brand, or consumption in general. Contemporary advertising, states John Spierings, 'seeks to 'free' commodities from their context of production, obliterate their history of manufacture, and to portray consumption as an act of autonomy'. 2 This study will demonstrate the process that produced this condition by examining the period when Australian advertisers celebrated the context of production of their wares. During the first half of the twentieth century, advertisements produced for Australia's infant industrial sector commonly featured the site of production — the factory. The rise and gradual fall of the factory image between 1900 and 1969 reflects the changing conceptualisations of producer, consumer, and national identities in Australia. 3	1
American historians have observed that the emergence of seemingly 'soulless' industrial plants at the beginning of the twentieth century served to alienate many American workers and consumers. 4 Many companies therefore initiated public relations activities, foremost among which was advertising. 5 Advertising was initially seen as a means of introducing manufacturers and their wares to the consuming public. However, at a deeper level, they also hoped to impart their ideological values to readers.	2
In Australian popular culture, the urban landscape has received similarly ambivalent treatment. By projecting only those images that would boost their sales, the advertising industry has helped cultivate this ambivalence. Selling property in Central NSW, a 1911 advertisement inserted by Arthur Rickard's real estate agency highlighted the difference between rural and city life:	3
To every man with good red blood in his veins the free, healthy, open life of the country must stand out in marked and favorable contrast to that spent amidst the drab and cramped surroundings and monotonous routine of the office. 6
In contrast, a 1913 advertisement inserted by the same agency sought to project an exciting and modern image of a new development in Auburn. The advertisement glowingly described the new development as a 'flourishing, go-ahead manufacturing suburb ... [the] Birmingham of Australia'. 7 The accompanying image features seemingly content workers heading homeward after work. (However, to twenty-first century eyes, these grey skies and the column of trudging workers inadvertently reinforce the grim stereotypes outlined by the 1911 advertisement.) In inner-suburbs such as Auburn and Richmond, workers lived cheek by jowl with their workplace and workmates — factories not only dominated the skylines, they dominated inner-suburban life. 8	4
The factory image had been commonplace in American and Australian advertisements since the nineteenth century. 9 Rather than depicting its range of beers, an 1875 poster for Carlton & United Breweries featured its premises. 10 Factory facades were similarly celebrated by various companies featured in the 1888 Victoria and Its Metropolis. 11 Standing prominently at the head of an advertisement, the factory attracted the reader's gaze. It was the locus of production. Already in these early advertisements, the image of the factory could serve two distinct, albeit not entirely exclusive, functions. Advertisements such as the Carlton poster identify and celebrate the factory as the producer of a specific ware. The physical appearance of the particular factory thus stands as a testament to the quality of the ware on offer. I have labelled the advertisements using this appeal 'consumer needs' advertisements. In the second type of advertisement, the unspecified or generic factory stands as the ubiquitous symbol of production. I have classified these as 'productionist' advertisements. Rather than advertising a ware, they celebrate the ideology of industrial progress. In 1910, the American advertising journal Printer's Ink highlighted the interconnectedness that 'consumer needs' and 'productionist' appeals share. It argued that the factory conveyed	5
[a]n idea of stability. ... There the factory stands, a most tangible and conclusive proof of the advertiser's ability to cope with demand. ... Every reader of normal psychology must feel that here is a concern anchored to one spot by the weight of capital invested in national equipment. Suspicions of irresponsibility, of 'fly-by-night' policies, are allayed before they are born. 12
Highlighting the factory's immense size served a similar function. For such advertisers, it stood to reason that successful companies had large factories. Having invested their egos into their factories, American manufacturers were unwilling to pay for advertisements that omitted their pride and joy. 13 Australian manufacturers appeared to share this reluctance. Resch's, for example, was loath to exclude the 'mammoth' Redfern brewery from its advertisements (even if it disrupted the advertisement's balance). 14 The classical allusions featured in a 1907 Dunlop advertisement are similarly offset by the inclusion of its Montague plant. 15	6
Where the premises were neither large nor architecturally pleasing, advertisers sometimes displayed the factory's inner workings. Although factory work was arduous and repetitious, the image of mass-produced products was visually impressive. By displaying the stacks of recently produced bottles, a 1901 advertisement for the Nicholls' Tasmanian Dandelion Ale Manufactory downplays its small size whilst presenting an image of efficient production. 16 Stuart Ewen suggests that such images of order and efficiency within the factory were also illustrative of business leaders' attempts 'to confront the resistance of people whose work lives were increasingly defined by the rigid parameters of industrial production and their corporate bureaucracies'. 17 While factory work in Australia struggled to escape its reputation of being 'a grinding, toiling mill, absorbing the energies of those it at last flung back on the world, disabled and spent', there is little evidence to suggest that the situation outlined by Ewen was commonly shared by Australians. 18 Strikes at Bryant and May and Bell and Co. (1911) and at Sunshine Harvester (1913), for example, barely altered either company's advertising strategy. 19 Such reactions illustrate Australian business' somewhat rudimentary understanding of advertising.	7
During the opening years of the new century, professional advertising men were few and far between. Of his early days as a professional copy-writer, Hugh Paton recalled, 'I approached leading Melbourne firms and begged them to allow me to write their advertisements. They gazed at me in consternation and doubted whether I was in my right senses'. 20 Early advertising journals such as the Ad Writer thus promised to 'act as the business man's ad-writer, supplying strong ... "copy" ready for immediate use'. 21 The Draper of Australasia identified another problem: 'Spasmodic advertising is a complaint from which a great number of Australasian merchants and manufacturers suffer'. 22 In The Power of Advertising, the first monograph written for Australia's emerging advertising industry, Arthur O. Richardson berated the contemporary attitude towards advertising:	8
Here in Australia, Advertising is not taken as seriously as it should be. There is too much groping in the dark ... too little recognition of the latent power of this twentieth century business developer, too many kindergarten schemes in operation, and altogether too much conservatism. 23
While these criticisms are indicative of an infant industry desperately trying to establish itself, they nevertheless reveal the degree of scepticism confronting Australia's advertising industry.	9
Those local companies that understood the power of advertising were particularly interested in drawing attention to their workers' welfare. Advertising in Labor Call in 1911, Wertheim piano manufacturers proudly declared that its factory, 'the most up-to-date ... in Australia', employed workers 'under the eight hours system'. 24 Advertisements in other press outlets expressed similar sentiments without the overt political appeals. A 1905 advertisement for the Welsbach mantle manufacturers thus proclaimed: 'The conditions under which work is carried out are excellent — a special dining room is provided for the girls, who participate in a bonus above their salaries'. 25 Appearing in 1907, Figure 1 similarly features content workers working in what appears to be a clean and commodious workplace.	10
Figure 1 Source: Souvenir Catalogue of the Australian Exhibition 1907, Melbourne, 1907, p.164
Such celebrations of workplace harmony almost read as an advertisement for the Government's 'New Protection' policy. 26 These advertisers understood that safe and sanitary work conditions reflected well on the company and, indeed, their wares. Positive images of factory work sought to dispel the problematic image that dogged modern industrialised states. The image of industry projected in Figure 2 illustrates these efforts. In terms of design and appeal, Figure 2 is a significant advance on the aforementioned advertisements.	11
Figure 2 Source: Australia To-Day, 1912, p.170
Neither the Havelock factory nor its workplace conditions are specifically identified. Work nonetheless remains central to its overall message. As evidenced by the range of consumer wares in the foreground, the factory stands as the site of production. It also 'produces' employment — both for the 'Captain of Industry' and the 'rank and file' workers. The image also celebrates consumption. The wages earned by both 'thinker' and 'worker' not only enable them to consume Havelock, they also provide them an opportunity to purchase the wares in the foreground. This image of accessibility resembles the 'parable of the democracy of goods' identified by Roland Marchand:	12
According to this parable, the wonders of modern mass production and distribution enabled every person to enjoy the society's most significant pleasure, convenience, or benefit. 27
Although Marchand's observation was based on 1920s' American advertisements celebrating luxury and glamour, it nevertheless helps account for the imagery featured in Figure 2 . The factory and the ship thus signify modern production and distribution, whilst the aeroplane alludes to the wonders of technological development. The democratic tenor of Figure 2 also tapped into the discourse of Australian identity. Uniting the thinker and worker in their enjoyment of the 'National Smoke', it actively celebrates Australia's egalitarian ethos.	13
When war broke out in 1914, Figure 2 's themes and motifs would assume an even greater importance for advertisers, the advertising industry, and, indeed, the nation itself. In its magazine, the recently formed Victorian Ad Club identified the war as an economic struggle:	14
It was remembered how, in many instances, by superior organisation, by better advertising, by more just perception of the value of samples and printed matter, the Germans had gradually crept into the Commonwealth markets ... 28
The war was a godsend for local manufacturers competing against German imports. Advertisers duly exploited the upsurge in xenophobia as nationalist appeals combined with commercial appeals. 'You are not asked to choose Perdriau's merely because they are Australian, but because they are better — and Australian', enthused the tyre manufacturer in 1916. 29 Australia's infant manufacturing sector struggled to cope with the demands that the German naval blockade had placed upon it. A 1915 Dunlop advertisement thus warned:	15
One lesson the war has taught is that Australians must make this country as self contained as possible. They must build up industries that will employ Australian workmen, in lieu of importing goods and sending money overseas to build up the prosperity of other countries ... National expansion and prosperity do not follow along those lines. This country calls for more people, but not more imported goods. 30
Beneath this warning appeared the Dunlop rubber mills, the 'Largest in Southern Hemisphere'. Dunlop, it implied, was ready to meet the future. Alongside images of the factory, such claims denoted the company's stability, productivity, and commitment to the nation — in short, 'Australia Unlimited'.	16
Advertisements referring to the war generally concentrated on the Digger not the factory. This reflected the nation's experience of war — the Digger alone bore the hopes and fears of an entire nation. All others were measured against his sacrifice. Local manufacturers were thus unable and, indeed, unwilling to compare themselves to the national hero. Their wartime strategy was simple: to establish and maintain a foothold in the local market. A 1917 Berger Paints advertisement implicitly reveals this self-interest. Below the company's newly built factory, its copy states, 'Here is a sun-lighted factory — a healthful hygienic place typical of power and prestige. Here is industry unleashed — here is enterprise unlimited [emphasis added]'. 31 Enterprise, not, sacrifice was their contribution to the nation, and would remain so into the following decades.	17
Although the war ended abruptly in November 1918, a 1919 advertisement for Joshua's Boomerang Whisky reveals that Dunlop's wartime warning would resonate in the social, political, and economic outlook of post-war Australia:	18
With the signing of the Peace Treaty will commence a new International struggle within the Domains of Trade. Already the Nations are preparing for their attacks on the World's Markets, and if Australia is to survive economically in the new conflict the maxim guiding Individual Expenditure must be "Support Australian Industry — Buy Australian Goods". 32
The Australasian Manufacturer concurred, declaring that Australians needed to 'make Australia one of the most prosperous, most self-reliant, and therefore, one of the safest countries in the world'. 33 Industrialisation, it suggested, underpinned Australia's defence, its future progress, and its prosperity. National security was inextricably linked to self-sufficiency. The aims of the highly protectionist 'Greene Tariff' of 1921 officially recognised this interrelationship. 34	19
'Men, money, markets' became the catchphrase of Stanley Bruce's Australia. Illustrations in the annual journal Australia To-Day reflect Australia's great industrial drive. Where six illustrations of Australian industry appeared in the 1914 edition (including one advertisement for Dunlop), Australia To-Day 1925 devoted nine pages to local manufacturing and industry. These featured a series of 'productionist' images alongside Ambrose Pratt's text. The virtues of the nation's great industrial venture were underscored by seven additional advertisements inserted by commercial firms. One, an advertisement for the Commonwealth Bank, fittingly describes prosperity as 'the Product of Industry'. 35	20
Not surprisingly, industries that stood to gain the most from protection readily identified themselves with a self-sufficient Australia. Australia's heavy industries led the charge. 'Trouble in the Pacific', declared a 1925 advertisement for Commonwealth Oil Refineries (COR), 'what if it should come? If some day the sinister grey shapes of blockading warships should be sighted off the shores of Australia'. In an accompanying illustration, COR's refineries are more than a 'productionist' image — they are a symbol of national defence. 36	21
Like its clients, the infant advertising industry seized the opportunity to identify itself with the national interest. In his 1927 reappraisal of Australia's advertising industry, The New Era in Advertising, Arthur O. Richardson argues that modern advertising had become a key player Australia's industrial development:	22
Mass production admittedly has brought prices tumbling down, but without mass selling mass production would be impossible, and it is advertising, and advertising alone, that makes mass selling possible. 37
Figure 3 illustrates Richardson's claim. Appropriating the image of heroic proletarian labour, the advertising industry identifies itself as the motive force behind the industrial system. Without advertising, it suggests, Australia would remain vulnerable. While such extravagant claims underscore the advertising industry's own insecurities, they highlight the degree to which invasionist fears influenced the discourse of Australian nationhood.	23
Figure 3 Source: Newspaper News, August, 1928, p.16
As in Figure 2 , the ship symbolises Australia's ties with the outside world. But here the image is a threatening one. Given the insecurities underpinning such imagery, it remains unclear whether this allusion refers to Australia's economic or military vulnerability.	24
For advertising executive Sydney Cox, advertising, consumerism, and industrial development all symbolised Australia's entry into modernity. Advertising was advancing at breakneck pace — its progress resembling that of 'the modern factory and the modern city'. 38 The image of the factory in 'productionist' advertisements and publications like Australia Today and Present-Day Australia was certainly becoming imbued with the notions of modernity and 'progress'. Illustrating 'NATIONALISM'S SPLENDID PROGRESS', a 1928 election advertisement cites the creation of '3356 MORE FACTORIES IN FIVE YEARS' as evidence of Australia's development. 39 Rather than symbolising the individual advertiser's premises, the factory was now taking on a rhetorical symbolism that was different to American trends. 40	25
To cultivate a more 'personal' image, American firms frequently inserted an image of the company head into their advertisements. 'For the manufacturer', observes Marchand, 'no identification of the company with its factory could be more personally gratifying than one that united his visage ... with a monumental rendering of his factory as the backdrop'. 41 Those without a noteworthy founder deployed the 'master of all he surveys' visual cliché. Such scenes featured a business executive in his commodious office looking down at his factory. (In later renderings, skyscrapered cityscapes replaced factories.) 42	26
Few Australian advertisers shared this preoccupation with famous or powerful individuals. Where American firms celebrated the individual and sought to personalise their appeals, local firms identified their factories as national rather than corporate symbols. William Arnott, for example, rarely appeared alongside his company's giant Homebush plant in interwar advertisements. 43 A 1925 souvenir handbook for visitors to Bryant and May's Richmond plant provides a partial reason for this unique appeal:	27
BRYANT AND MAY'S is not the story of one of those men of rare resource, courage and industry, who, by their own efforts and in their own lifetime, have built up a great industry from its beginnings. ... [T]he match industry in Australia was not so founded. It is an instance rather of A GREAT INHERITANCE. 44
Others focused on their workforce. In response to the question 'Who makes Australian Matches?', a 1928 Bryant and May's advertisement featured its factory. Management's role is downplayed and there is no mention of the company's founders:	28
Besides the six hundred employees at the Bryant & May factory, there are axemen in the Queensland bush, chemists in their laboratories, papermakers, teamsters, railwaymen, seamen, wharfies — all helping Australia to strike Australian matches. 45
Extolling the virtues of Australian-made products, a 1925 advertisement for Bonds clothing manufacturers depicted workers on the factory floor. Buying locally produced wares, it declared, would see Australia's wealth 'distributed in the country which does the work of manufacturing', benefiting 'its people, individually and collectively' [emphasis added]. 46	29
While Marchand observes that 'the working class appeared in advertising tableaux only in supporting functional roles', Gail Reekie notes that workers in local advertisements bucked the American trend. 47 These differences between Australian and American depictions of factories and workers illustrate the degree to which the broader political discourse impacted upon local 'productionist' and 'consumer-needs' advertisements.	30
Although smokestacks had appeared in earlier advertisements (see Figure 2 ), they did not then possess a specific symbolic function. 48 The towering chimney now stood as the new symbol of industrial productivity. Whether in long, smoky rows or standing alone, the smokestack (as a symbol) was far removed from the 'sick black towers' described by Charles Dickens. 49 The smokestack alone could not convey productivity. In Figure 3 , it is the long plumes of smoke that perform this symbolic function. British commentators have noticed that advertisers took great liberties with this motif, blanketing their factories and cities with heavy clouds of smoke. 50 The opposite also held true — factories not pumping out dark clouds signified stagnancy. A 1925 election advertisement for Bruce's Nationalists thus juxtaposes two industrial scenes — one with smoke-laden skies, the second without. Smoke symbolises the party's slogan, 'Nationalists rule is National Prosperity'. 51 Such negative images paradoxically reinforced the positives of modernity, suggesting that Australia Unlimited was moving ahead in the right direction.	31
Discrepancies between reality and the highly idealised images projected in advertisements mark the emergence of modern advertising strategies and techniques. Modern advertising, observes Jackson Lears, is less 'an agent of materialism than one of the cultural forces working to disconnect human beings from the material world'. 52 As in earlier advertisements, the grim realities of factory work were concealed. While the factory floor did appear, the focus was on the new symbol of modernity — the machine. 53 Displaced workers were relegated to the background. This obfuscation of the work process, contends Ewen, was a deliberate ploy that was integral to the 'success of consumerization'. 54 No longer a simple manufacturer of wares, the smoke-belching factory in 'productionist' and 'consumer-needs' advertisements had become the manufacturer of national prosperity. Projecting its 'vision splendid' in 1923, Bond's simultaneously identified mass production and consumption as the basis of Australia's future security and prosperity:	32
A LAND, where from the bustling cities Want and Starvation have forever been banished — where beyond the city boundaries Industrial Centres, no longer a disfiguring blot on the landscape, mark prosperous, care-free communities — where millions of fertile acres, once a lonely wilderness, now produce their myriad fruits of seed and plant to cater for the needs of a self-contained Nation — the land Australia could be, should be, and will be ... 55
By 1929, Australia was little closer to realising this splendid vision. The Depression soon took its toll. As the situation worsened, the factory image appeared less frequently. Advertisements for local advertising agencies were retreating from the factory. Following the American trend, they identified themselves with the skyscrapers towering above New York — the advertising capital of the world. 56 No smokestacks appear in Figure 4 . This thoroughly Modernist image of Melbourne and Sydney reflects the prevailing American view that saw skyscrapers 'as an integral part of a new, sophisticated industrial and business civilization'. 57 The skyscraper image thus encapsulated the aspirations of the advertising industry in Australia. Reinforcing advertising's claims to modernity, such imagery identified advertising with the boardroom rather than the factory floor.	33
Figure 4 Source: Newspaper News, August, 1929, p.11
'A period of transition and readjustment is going on', editorialised the Advertiser's Monthly in 1930, 'the carefully planned policies of yesterday will have to be modified to meet the new school of public thought which is springing up throughout Australia'. 58 Advertisers that had previously incorporated the factory image into their 'consumer-needs' appeals now dropped it, devoting their efforts exclusively to the product itself. Beverley Kingston has observed that appeals to economy seemed more convincing to cash-strapped consumers than patriotic exhortations. 59 Alternatively, advertisers featured images of luxury or glamour to exploit the consumer's escapist desires. 60 However, the most common form of escapism saw the Depression downplayed or simply concealed. Broad smiles and sunny days beside the seaside were highly popular motifs that were a world away from the smoky factory.	34
Although obscured, the factory had not disappeared entirely. Having associated themselves so closely with what they believed was a powerful and evocative symbol, many advertisers appeared unwilling or unable to abandon the factory image. For others, there were few alternatives. Spectacular skyscrapers, for example, would have hardly projected the values and aspirations of Scullin's struggling Labor Government. The political values that had underpinned the factory's initial resonance now threatened to undermine it altogether. Factories simultaneously represented production and stagnation. A 1930 advertisement for Old Court Whisky, for example, depicted factories shrouded in darkness. Headed 'The darkest hour is just before the dawn', its copy urged Australians to look beyond their current hardships:	35
For Australia there is promise of a tomorrow ... How far away that much desired tomorrow may be depends on the individuals who go to form the nation. ... Let us realise that these [Australian] industries, as they prosper by our support, will be able to provide more employment, better conditions, and make certain their permanency. 61
For the unemployed and their families, the factory had become synonymous with closures, sackings, and exploitation. 62 The very concept of nationhood embodied by the factory was open to question.	36
Advertisers with a vested interest in the ongoing resonance of the 'productionist' image duly worked to offset these harmful attitudes. Bryant and May's and Arnott's, for example, sought to project a positive image of themselves as manufacturers and employers by drawing attention to their workers' exceptional conditions. 63 Others highlighted their contribution to the nation's employment figures. General Motors-Holden's Ltd (GMH) deliberately cultivated a stronger national image. A 1932 advertisement thus stated bluntly, 'General Motors-Holden's Ltd. has a definite objective — to completely identify its organisation as an Australian entity'. 64 The caricature of the Little Boy from Manly in Figure 5 serves a similar function. 65 The Little Boy offers Australians a bright, secure, and productive future. Given the opportunity, he will be able to fend for himself. Significantly, he holds the symbols of productivity — a smokestack and a plume of smoke. Fear, however, coexists with hope. In comparison to Figures 3 and 4 , this advertisement represents a somewhat vulnerable image of the nation. Now is the time, it warns, for Australians to look after Australia, before it is too late.	37
Figure 5 Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 1 May 1930, p.6
'Progress' was another popular motif. Rather than looking ahead, progress was envisaged as 'achievement' — the sum of successive feats. Advertisements celebrating the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, for example, likened the advertiser and its wares to the 'progress' embodied by the giant structure. 66 Continuing this motif, a 1939 Broken Hill Propriety (BHP) advertisement featured photographs of Sydney's rising skyline and a giant smelter. Its copy told readers:	38
B.H.P. steel has made possible the steady expansion of Australia's secondary industries, it has given form to the dreams of the pioneers, and has brought benefits to all classes of the community. Truly, steel tells the story of progress! 67
As this advertisement hints, confidence gradually returned. Stopgap measures were cast aside, as companies moved to regain their pre-Depression footing. Touted as a miracle cure during the Depression, market research could now be ignored by advertising agents. 68 As the industry had long argued, commonsensical advertising made consumer wares more accessible to the public, not foreign 'highfalutin' theories. 69 Local manufacturers similarly displayed its antipathy to recent American ideas about 'consumer engineering' as they resumed normal production. 70	39
Although consumers had less to spend during the Depression, local firms were well aware that the economic downturn had also weakened overseas competitors. The dramatic reduction in imports effectively strengthened their position in the local market. 71 Industries that had survived the economic crisis were now ready to thrive. In 1937, GMH declared that a new era was dawning: 'The trend of industrial activity in Australia is changing. From a nation mainly engaged in primary industry, we are becoming committed to the increasing development of secondary industry'. 72	40
Economic improvement endowed the factory image with much of its pre-Depression symbolic resonance, particularly among those advertisers featuring 'productionist' appeals. In 1936, the Federated Pharmaceutical Guild of Australia thus represented the nation's 'flourishing manufacturing business in chemicals, drugs and medicines' with no fewer than 21 smoking chimneys. 73 The scars of the recent crisis, however, remained. Wary of local industry's vulnerability, advertisements frequently reminded consumers that their support was vital. Departing from recent trends, advertisers increasingly identified consumption rather than production as an inherently patriotic endeavour.	41
The spectre of war and Australia's capacity to defend itself still cast a shadow over the discourse of nation. Outlining its policy to readers, a 1939 advertisement for the Commonwealth Rolling Mills (CRM) declared that its goal was:	42
To recognise our obligation to the Nation which makes possible the conditions under which this company exists and operates; believing that it is the responsibility of every institution to help, as far as it can, to develop industrial progress in the interests of national safety and stability. 74
These aims were soon adopted by the nation's manufacturing industry at large when Australia again found itself at war. The fears and nightmares that had plagued Australians since World War I were now a reality. The nation and its industries would now find out just how far they had really come since 21918.	43
After a slow start, war motifs appeared in advertisements with growing regularity. 75 As the situation in Europe worsened, their tone became sterner. This was particularly prevalent in advertisements inserted by the Commonwealth (where the line between commercial appeal and outright propaganda was deliberately blurred). 'Make no mistake ... THIS IS A WAR for SURVIVAL', warned an advertisement for government bonds in late 1940, 'Every asset this country possesses must be pledged; every industry, every branch of science, every public utility must be developed and harnessed to the supreme effort'. 76 Advertisers and the advertising industry soon realised that this war would not be confined to the battlefield. By projecting their wares and, indeed, themselves as vital elements of the nation's home front effort, commercial advertisers sought to underscore their commitment to the nation.	44
The home front motif neatly blurred with the 'productionist' image of the factory. Yarra Falls textile mills, for example, identified itself with the war effort through a range of industrial images — from the factory and its workers to the tools they used and the products they were producing. The copy of the 1941 advertisement added, 'Every man, woman and machine of the nation is just as surely a weapon of total war as every soldier, gun and tank'. 77 In an attempt to reassure consumers (the public and the Commonwealth alike) that the company was able to meet the demands of war, the advertisement also highlights the factory's size.	45
Appearing a few months after the Yarra Falls advertisement, Figure 6 with its giant industrial plant symbolises the nation's brute strength and machine-like efficiency (an interesting contrast to the heroic labour character featured in Figure 3 ). Figure 6 thus underscores the need for a united effort in a modern war. Every factory was an important cog in the nation's war machine. If one stopped, the entire machine could come to a grinding halt. Others portrayed factory workers as the home front troops. 78 Little, it seems, separated the front line from the home front — a point that became more apparent as the Japanese neared Australia.	46
Figure 6 Source: Newspaper News, May 1941, p.17
As the nation struggled against the combined Axis powers, local manufacturers publicised their contribution to the 'all in' war effort. Echoes of the depression-era appeals could be heard in the advertisers' veneration of their achievements over the past years. Heavy industries led this self-congratulatory praise. 'Achievements that would have been hailed as outstanding events in our industrial history in normal times have been accepted as part of the day's work in the accelerated tempo of this time of war', gloated CRM in 1944. 79 Others, such as Australian Paper Manufacturers, congratulated themselves on their foresight. Above its Gippsland plant, the copy triumphantly states, 'Construction Commenced - - 1937! NOW A GREAT NATIONAL WAR-TIME ASSET'. 80 With one eye on the long-term future, the advertising industry also sounded its own trumpet. Outlining advertising's contribution to the nation's defence, advertising executives crowed: 'Advertising built pre-war industries which became nucleus of war industries enabling quick change-over for war production'. 81	47
Latent egoism was not the sole cause for this renewed interest in the factory. Many companies had little choice. Restrictions and rationing denied them the opportunity to create typical 'consumer-needs' advertisements. Depicting female munitions workers at work, a 1943 advertisement for the Women's Weekly outlined this situation:	48
She may wear an overall ... have broken fingernails, but she's still interested in Fashion, Beauty, Cooking, and Home-making ... and that means she looks for YOUR message. ... [T]ell her about your product. Why it is being diverted into other channels ... why, today it is off the retailer's shelves ... or whatever else. 82
Where 'productionist' imagery had formerly advocated the expansion of Australia's manufacturing sector, wartime advertisements featuring 'productionist' imagery now sought to uphold the consumerist imperative. Although imported, a 1943 advertisement for the Rootes Group car manufacturers characterises this shift. Identifying factories as 'The Power behind the BRITISH PUNCH', it told readers 'When the guns at last are silent and the world can turn again to hard-won happiness and to reconstruction — cars and trucks of warrior sturdiness will be made available for you'. 83 As the war progressed, advertisements like this made it increasingly difficult to separate appeals based on national sentiment from those based on consumerist desires. 84	49
Improving front-line fortunes fostered greater confidence amongst advertisers. Fantastic visions of the post-war era proved a popular and, indeed, morale-boosting motif. 'Where formerly isolation and loneliness ruled', prophesied Ansett Airways in mid-1943, 'new industries, new homes, new communities will spring up to make Australia rich, prosperous and strong'. 85 All Australians, it suggested, would benefit equally. Science and technology were integral elements in these fantasies, and manufacturers were particularly excited about their potential. Underneath an artistic rendering of the future combining scientific, technological, and industrial motifs, a 1943 advertisement for pipe makers Stewarts and Lloyds excitedly declared that it was ready to meet the future:	50
The knowledge and experience gained by almost all Australian industries, and applied to gearing up for the highest standard of living Australia has ever known, will make short work of that much-discussed period of re-adjustment. 86
A later advertisement in the same series featured a family standing between a church and a giant factory. 'Already, Australian Industry is formulating far-reaching plans for peace-time production', it declared, 'Industry tomorrow will be confronted with the biggest job in history ... to create employment for all'. 87 As victory neared, future visions were less likely to feature the factory. Skyscrapers, not smokestacks, pierced the skylines of these futuristic cities. As the advertising agencies of the late 1920s had foreseen, the gleaming skyscraper had become synonymous with progress, prosperity, and, of course, consumption.	51
After six years of conflict, the public had come to identify the factory or plant as the symbol of war on the home front — a testament to the advertising industry's persuasive powers. The factory's decline was predictable. Advertisers therefore needed to reinvent themselves and their image. Most companies depicted their wares (whether they were available or not) in the possession of smiling consumers. Those producing wares that were difficult to visualise, ie Claude Neon, retained the factory. 88 Others that had not yet resumed peacetime production sought to reinvigorate their factory with a new 'structure of meaning'. Sounding its 'Forecast' for the future, a 1946 advertisement identified GMH and its plants as a means of maintaining 'employment at the highest possible level and to hasten the production of the motor vehicles so urgently needed fort the full rehabilitation of Australia's economy'. 89	52
Reverting to civilian production, advertisers hoped to reap the rewards of their wartime investment in advertising. Consumers were now urged to act on those desires that advertisers such as the Stewarts and Lloyds and the Rootes Group had struggled to fan throughout the austere war years. It was a situation that the advertising industry had eagerly awaited. 'For years the world has been starved of consumer goods', observed an advertisement for Adelaide's Advertiser in December 1945, 'If the men from the forces are to be re-absorbed into secure civilian life, the out-put of consumer goods must rise. The movement from production to consumption must be made easy'. 90 Such fears intimate the manufacturing sector's deep-seated fear of depression. For these firms, consumption was becoming as important, if not more important, than production.	53
Satisfying pent-up desires ironically proved somewhat difficult — the consumer's appetite seemed insatiable. Fears that overproduction could lead to another depression resulted in a Commonwealth advertising campaign. Underneath the image of a factory and two workers, a 1947 advertisement asked readers 'What will they make for you?' It then chided them:	54
Due to postwar shortages of labour, materials and manufacturing equipment, Australian industry is unable, at present, to produce all the goods we need. It could produce nearly all the essentials required if we went without luxuries. Or it could give us the luxuries if we sacrificed the necessities. We can't have full supplies of both. 91
Self-imposed restraint was hardly an attractive cause given the enforced austerity of the recent past. Some sectors of the manufacturing privately shared the Government's concerns. 92 The vast majority of advertisers, however, continued to fuel consumerist desires with their fantastic promises. As industry regained its footing in an increasingly affluent market, fears of an imminent depression subsided.By 1949, the same Labor Government proudly declared that it had delivered full employment. To illustrate its achievement, an election advertisement featured an outwardly stereotypical 'productionist' image — a dormant factory juxtaposed against a smoking factory. 93 Rather than 'leading' the nation, the advertisement suggested that Labor was a 'producer' giving the electorate or its 'consumers' what they wanted — work, stability, and prosperity.	55
As the economy gained momentum, the dreams of yesteryear were slowly becoming attainable realities. One advertising man thus recalled, 'In the years 1945 to 1952 practically anything made of metal, painted and fitted with an electric motor, was easily sold'. 94 Wartime promises of science and technology were also being delivered. Celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, Atlantic Oil identified itself with modern Australia. It took pride 'in building up the nation's great manufacturing potential, in increasing productivity of rural industries, and in strengthening a vast network of transport and communications'. The past is again juxtaposed against a prosperous vision of the present. While the past appears as a semi-industrial scene, the modern petrol station and cars denoting the present convey a decidedly suburban image. 95 The latter reflects the political discourse of Menzies' Australia, where suburban domesticity had become the defining national characteristic. 96 The need to 'buy a house in the suburbs, to fill the house with a range of appliances, and to acquire a car', notes Greg Whitwell, was the 'suburban imperative', the basis of post-war consumer society. 97 Writing in 1953, Donald Cochrane confirmed this view, 'An increasing standard of living ... contains within itself the seeds of higher consumption, increased employment, and hence further increases in the standard living'. 98	56
Not surprisingly, the nation's manufacturers identified suburbanites as the ideal consumers. This focus reinforced the link between national and consumer identities, as advertisers moved away from celebrating 'productionist' imagery as a national symbol. Figure 7 exemplifies industry's new direction. Its images of 'our modern way of life and progress' stand in marked contrast to a 1919 BHP advertisement that warned: 'The Iron and Steel works must be built up in time of peace so that they may be prepared when war comes'. 99 Domesticity not national security was the focus of local manufacturers' post-World War II advertising campaigns. While the Communist menace lurked in the shadows, the spectre of war was rarely featured as a selling point for consumer wares. Reprinted in the Australasian Grocer, an article from London's Economist explained this shift: 'To be effective psychologically an advertisement must 'sell' emotional security rather than, as often in the past, stimulate fear and insecurity'. 100 The consumerist imperative, if properly promoted, would keep consumers consuming. Working on the consumer's desires rather than fears, advertisements depicted an increasingly utopian vision of life in modern Australia.	57
Figure 7 Source: Australia To-Day, 1950, back cover
That advertisers were identifying themselves and their products within the domestic world of the consumer (rather than the other way around) reveals a fundamental shift in the balance of power. Intensified competition within the crowded market forcibly altered advertisers' appeals. Consumers no longer identified themselves with the manufacturer's dreams and values. As the article in the Australasian Grocer reveals, advertisers understood that they now needed to appeal to the consumer's desires. This was not necessarily a smooth transition. As Figure 7 demonstrates, manufacturers found it difficult to abandon 'productionist' imagery altogether. However, the factory here lacks its former resonance. As the suburban imperative gained momentum, 'productionist' imagery receded from view. Where such imagery was to be used, it needed to be linked to the post-war Great Australian Dream.	58
'When the smoke from the chimneys STOPS ... WHO SUFFERS?', asked a 1955 advertisement for Australian-made goods. 101 While smoke remained a popular visual metaphor for productivity and economic strength, it too was disappearing from advertisements. Questions concerning these emissions had already been raised in 1945. 'The belching smokestack', began an advertisement for a steam engineering company, 'mistakenly regarded as a symbol of power, of human activity and busyness by so many, is, to the steam engineer, a visible sign of waste'. 102 Identified as a pollutant rather than a symbol of production, smoke now held little appeal for suburban consumers (many of whom were moving to the suburbs to escape these noxious fumes). While electricity was reducing smoke emissions, the consumer's affair with the car nevertheless ensured that smog-choked skies remained.	59
By the late 1950s, the factory's symbolic significance had further declined. Some middle-sized companies persevered with the image, identifying themselves and their factory with the nation and its progress. 103 These advertisements, however, appeared tired, dated, and altogether uninspiring. Larger advertisers were looking further afield for inspiration. A 1960 advertisement for the Commercial Bank identified 'AUSTRALIA'S VIGOROUS EXPANSION' with a montage of workers, skyscrapers, and Sydney's Circular Quay and CBD. 104 Skyscrapers were no longer fanciful dreams. In 1962, Hutcherson Brothers building firm could thus claim 'turn the intangible into reality' with images of actual skyscrapers. 105 These beaming office blocks symbolised a new economic order. As the advertising industry had predicted, the skyscraper was the real locus of power. This was where the 'real' decisions were made — from product design to marketing strategies. Skyscrapers also represented the integration of Australia's economy into the global market. Multi-national corporations frequently erected great towers to mark their arrival in Australia. 106 As Craig McGregor noted in 1966, the skyscraper, along with expressways, foreign policy deadlines, and strip clubs, heralded Australia's emergence in the Western World. 107 (Ironically, the advertising industry would be among the first local industries to suffer from the arrival of multinational corporations.)	60
The number of Australians working in these towers in white-collar work was growing rapidly. 108 The conceptualisation of the 'productionist' image was changing. McGregor thus observed, 'The "typica" Australian isn't a worker any longer, he is more likely to be a youngish clerk or businessman with nice button-down shirts, sincere tie, last year's Holden ... and a wife in the suburbs'. 109 This corporatisation of Australia's workforce together with the gradual decline of primary and secondary industries is emblematic of 'development in the more highly developed countries'. 110 The impact of this development was not limited to the economic field. Speaking at the Modern Merchandising Methods Conference in 1957, E.J. Molony thus contended, 'our population is steadily becoming better educated, which does give us hope that less money might be spent on S.P. bookmakers and more on the real comforts of life'. 111 Well aware of this shift, advertisers took pride in the fact that they had helped Australians become 'more alike in their tastes'. 112	61
Electric power plants were emerging as another popular motif. During the 1950s, they had assumed much of the factory's 'productionist' symbolism. In terms of size and appearance (ie its mass of smokestacks), the power plant superseded the factory. The clean energy it produced was the new 'proletarian hero' driving the wheels of Australia's industries. Unlike the private factory, power plants were created by and for the public — no wealthy industrialist was lining his pockets with the profits. Rather than depicting a privately-owned factory, the Commercial Bank represented Australia's 'secondary industries' in 1958 with a photograph of Australia's largest power station at Yallourn. 113 Alongside suburban images of homes, hospitals, and schools, the power plant was presented as a cornerstone of national progress. 114 Throughout the 1960s, builders, contractors, tube manufacturers, and cable manufacturers all sought to identify themselves with the democratic symbol of the power plant. 115 Whether using 'productionist' or 'consumer needs' appeals, the message remained unchanged — the entire nation profited from the electricity produced by power stations.	62
The mineral boom of the 1960s further contributed to the decline of the factory image. 'Industry' was becoming synonymous with the mineral industry. In 1968, Nippon Sharyo thus presented its earth-moving machinery as 'An Active Promoter for Industrial Development of Australia'. 116 As the mineral industry expanded, the attention paid to Australia's secondary industries declined. Factories no longer captured the public's imagination. Furthermore, much of the resources unearthed in Australia were sent overseas for production. Underneath its vast industrial plant, a 1968 advertisement for the Japanese firm Sumitomo Metals told Australian readers:	63
3,700 nautical miles away, Australian ore becomes steel for Australia. From Darwin, Dampier, Gladstone and other ports three ore carriers haul Australian ore 3,700 nautical miles north, to the Wakayama steel works of Sumitomo Metals.... It's good trade. Two-way trade.... Sumitomo Metals ... plays a vital role in the development of our part of the world. 117
Australia's neighbours were identified as trading partners, not enemies. Prosperity (both national and individual) replaced 'progress' as the cornerstone of national security and regional stability.	64
It would be incorrect, however, to attribute too much significance to the impact of overseas companies. Appearing in 1967, Figure 8 reveals that Australian manufacturers remained still protected by high tariffs. Like GMH during the interwar years, French manufacturer Renault established a local plant to provide a toehold in the local market. While the copy mentions the West Heidelberg factory and workforce, neither is illustrated.	65
Figure 8 Source: Bulletin, 1 October 1967, back cover
Like their turn-of-the-century predecessors, the creators of this advertisement consciously use the factory to localise the company. By focusing on 'where was it produced', not 'how was it produced', Figure 8 captures the final stage in the gradual separation of the productive process from the end product and its intended image.	66
Why did the image of the factory ultimately disappear from advertisements? Figure 8 (like Figure 4 before it) indicates that contemporary advertising trends and marketing techniques had played a significant role in the factory's downfall. Its disappearance represents the advertising industry's victory over the manufacturer's ego. The creators of Figure 8 evidently demonstrated that the consumer's interests revolved around the product and what it could do for them. The rural setting and its promise freedom and escape certainly target the consumer's emotions and dreams. This scene not only conceals the actual manufacturing process, it downplays Renault's foreignness and potentially problematic 'Frenchy' tag. Repackaging its cars as 'Australian-made', Renault offers local consumers French sophistication without pretence. You will buy this product, it tells consumers, because we are like you.	67
By identifying the company, its workers, and its factory with the consumer's own individual identity, Figure 8 also rejects the fundamental basis of earlier advertising appeal. Generations of consumers had been encouraged to identify with the company and, indeed, its factory. Advertisers told these consumers that correct consumption would enable them to share the firm's power and prestige. The Depression altered this situation. The creators of 'consumer-needs' advertisements now asked themselves whether or not consumers really identified with the firm's factory. After its short-lived renaissance during World War II, the factory image gradually receded from view — first in advertisements featuring 'consumer-needs' appeals and then in 'productionist' advertisements. The utilitarian architecture of post-war factories underscores this symbolic shift. No longer designed to be seen, factories were relocated to the periphery of Australian cities. A company's image was now created by a public relations department on the upper levels of a skyscraper. The focus on the consumer ahead of the producer was also a reflection of the consumer's increased affluence and heightened sense of self-awareness. Consumerism had become an inescapable par