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DQ News: The History Of Kodak

Kodak may be facing bankruptcy at the moment, but this once glorious company has a rich history. The London Evening Standard takes a look at their past.

He was a high school dropout who teachers described as “not especially gifted”, but in founding Kodak, George Eastman went on to make photography accessible to all and become one of the world’s most generous philanthropists.

Eastman had to leave school and become the family breadwinner aged 14 when his father died. Working as an office boy for an insurer, he was paid $3 a week.

A decade later, Eastman was planning a holiday to the Dominican Republic and decided to buy a camera to record it. It was as big as a microwave and required a heavy tripod plus a tent to spread pictures on glass plates before exposing them.

With chemicals, glass tanks, a heavy plate holder, and a jug of water, Eastman described the kit as “a pack-horse load”.

He never made it on holiday, but grew obsessed with the idea of making photography simpler.

By 1880 Eastman had invented a dry plate formula, and patented a machine for preparing large numbers of plates. He named his company Kodak, apparently because he thought the click of a camera sounded like “dak”.

It was in February 1900 that Eastman’s Brownie box camera first went on the sale.

He coined the slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Photo by jaqian

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