The daughters of Jack House, an early Australian film magnate, were among the first women in Sydney who cut men's hair.
Film distribution and production company Australasian Films waspivotal in establishing the local film industry, and Sydney's Pitt Street as its precinct. There, in 1927, underneath the company's Simpson House offices, two of the first female men's barbers worked in a barbershop run by their father, Jack House. This was something of a big deal: men's barbershops were (and still are) viewed as places only men should work at and attend. ("Women barbers are unreliable and erratic, as most women are in work," opined a male hairdressing bigwig in 1922.) One of the sisters, Dolly, went on to marry a young movie cameraman named Bill Tresis. Australasian Films and Union Theatres endured to become the foundation for Greater Union and Event Cinemas. (State Library of New South Wales/Flickr)