Albany Museum Honors Overlooked Women of Whaling Industry

For decades, the story of Australia's whaling industry has been told through the voices of men who worked the boats and processed the catch. Now, a new art exhibition in Albany is finally honoring the women who made that isolated community thrive.

Local artist Jo Wassell spent three months interviewing women who lived at Cheynes Beach Whaling Company station, about 70 kilometers east of Albany. The station operated from 1952 until 1978, housing families who relocated to support the operations that once held Albany's economy together.

Among those featured is Barb Reader, who moved to the station at 18 in 1966. She married quickly because the company required her husband's job offer to include housing only for married couples.

"Living at the station felt like being part of one large, close-knit family," Reader recalls. The tight community helped the entire city flourish, with countless Albany businesses depending on the whaling industry.

When the station closed in 1978 amid protests and political pressure, families received no compensation. Reader's family had to relocate to town and change schools, watching their livelihood disappear overnight.

Why This Inspires

Wassell's portraits do more than document history. They reveal the rich, complex lives of women who have been reduced to footnotes in industrial records.

"These women in my portraits are not just the wives of the men who worked here," Wassell explains. "Some of the women worked here, grew up here." The project challenges how we remember the past and whose stories get preserved.

The exhibition transforms Albany's Historic Whaling Station, now a museum, into a space dedicated to voices that have gone unheard for nearly 50 years. Wassell deliberately chose to focus on overlooked stories, creating intimate portraits shaped by months of conversations, archival research, and historical photographs.

The Women in Whaling exhibition proves that history becomes richer when we make room for everyone who lived it.