The Rise of Broken Hill’s Italian Bakeries

wooden trunk with metal hinges and locks, it has some black lettering which reads Mr. Forner Filomena Griffitt J.N.W. Australia'

In post-WWII Broken Hill much of the town’s daily bread supply was baked and delivered by three brothers born to Italian migrant parents – the industrious trio proudly named their enterprise Forner Brothers. Immediately after the war they bought their first bakery and convinced their elderly father Carlo to quit his job on the mines […]

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Broken Hill’s First Lady Miner

white directional sign with black lettering reading '14KM TRIPLE CHANCE'

Tess Alfonsi is recorded as Broken Hill’s first woman miner – a designation that is all the weightier given the historic domination of mining by men. She worked the Triple Chance Mine with a hammer-tap drill, hid a pistol in her skirt when she paid the wages and protected her mine from claim jumpers with […]

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