Kōrero: Furniture

This 1910s advertisement shows the Tonson Garlick furniture factory in Auckland. While mechanisation eroded the craft aspect of furniture making (where one or two people made a whole piece), the factory system increased demand for semi-skilled labour, where each worker handled only a small part of the production process. Accordingly, the factory was sited near the city's working-class districts of Grafton, Freemans Bay and Ponsonby. With a total staff of 148, it was a relatively large enterprise.