Georges Eastman and the Kodak industry
There is probably no greater first for Rochester than the discoveries by George Eastman that would change photography forever.
His education and early life
Raised by his widowed mother, Eastman left school at age fourteen to help earn money. He put the money in Rochester Saving Bank and began to build the capital he would need to nurture his revolutionary discoveries and bring them to market. While his savings increased, satisfaction for his job in the Rochester Savings Bank did not, photography had become an obsessive hobby.
The beginning of a photography industry
Eastman began to look for ways to make the taking and developing of photographs from wet plates more efficient and by 1879 he had developed a method of dray plating that would become his first patent, and he began to market his dry plates beyond Rochester. He then formed a partnership with Colonel Henry Strong, a boarder at Eastman's home, and they founded the company Eastman Dry Plate Company. In its first year the company showed a profit of $14 889,88 all of which was put back into the business for research and the purchase of machinery and chemicals.
However, the expanse and inconvenience of taking photographs limited the practice to professionals, there were no amateur photographers but Eastman believed it could change if the process was simplified. In 1885, he headed to the patent office with a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had developed. This allowed cameras to be smaller and cheaper. The first commercial film was introduced in 1885 and three years later the first Kodak camera was offered for sale. Kodak company slogan was "You press the button, we do the rest," which meant the camera was sent in to the company after the 100 exposures on the roll of film had been used; they developed it and sent it back to the customer. In 1889, Eastman hired chemist Henry Reichenbach to develop a type of flexible film that could be more easily inserted into cameras. Thomas Edison adapted the film for use in the motion-picture camera he was developing, further propelling the success of Eastman's company.
The development of the portable camera and motion picture resulted in an avalanche of orders for film and heralded the growth of the Kodak company which used to be Rochester's pride and international leader in photography.
Moreover, a camera for new hobbyist photographers, children was launched in 1900, it was called the Brownie Camera. Eastman supported the military in other ways as well, developing unbreakable glass lenses for gas masks and a special camera for taking pictures from planes during World War I. Globally, Eastman's innovations started the amateur photography craze that is still going strong today.
Georges Eastman, a philanthropist
Georges Eastman was a really generous man who contributed a lot to the cultural wealth of Rochester. Globally, it is estimated that Eastman contributed more than $100 million of his wealth for philanthropic purposes during his lifetime. He was an American industrialist who made a gift from his own money to each of his workers. In 1919, he added what is known now as stock options.
Furthermore, his generosity extended beyond his own business, he gave a lot of his money to the Rochester Institute of Technology, as well as Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His high regard for education in general led him to contribute to University of Rochester, and the Hampton and Tuskegee institutes, he actually said "The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education". Moreover, he was an art collector and a music lover and thus he established the prestigious Eastman School of Music in 1921 in Rochester.
During his life, Eastman was a cyclist however he noticed a progressive immobility, the result of a degenerative condition that involved a hardening of the cells in the lower spinal cord. He also suffered from severe diabetes. So on March 14, 1932, at age 77, he took his own life with a single gunshot to the heart. A note he left said, "My work is done. Why wait?" He left his entire estate to the University of Rochester and his home is today the George Eastman House Museum.
Timeline of Kodak History after Georges Eastman's death
1955 - Worldwide employment 73,000
1961 - The first Kodak Carousel slide projector is introduced
1962 - At this time Kodak is investing heavily in research and development for cameras and medical imaging and graphic arts. Sales exceed $1 billion for first time.
1966 - Worldwide sales exceed $4 billion, employment 100,000.
1975 - Kodak invents the first digital camera. It was the size of a toaster and captured black and white images at 10,000 pixels.
1981 - Sales top $10 billion.
1984 - Rochester employment peaks at 60,400.
1997 - Introduces the KODAK DC20. The first mega pixel quality, pocket size, point and shoot digital camera selling for under $1,000.
2001 - KODAK Easyshare system. Makes it easier to put digital pictures onto computer and printer.
2004 - Kodak begins digital makeover. It's ejected from the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average, a market index. It cuts tens of thousands of jobs as it closes factories and changes businesses
January 2012 - Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Written by Sarah Cozic