George Eastman – Death Anniversary

George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak, and often called “the father of photography” was many things — a clever inventor, a shrewd businessman, and in his later years a generous philanthropist.

George Eastman dropped out of school in 1868 and took a job at age 14 as an office boy, he did so as the man of the family, with weight on his shoulders.

George was serious, extremely orderly, and thrifty, and he made himself useful at a pair of insurance companies and then a bank, where he rose from clerk to bookkeeper. His private passion was the brand new hobby of photography. He experimented with the variety of crude techniques available in the 1870s, haunted photo shops, and swapped tips with professional portraitists.

Eastman worked briefly for an insurance company and a bank. In 1880 he perfected a process of making dry plates for photography and organized the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company for their manufacture. The first kodak (a name he coined) camera was placed on the market in 1888. It was a simple handheld box camera containing a 100-exposure roll of film that used paper negatives. Consumers sent the entire camera back to the manufacturer for developing, printing, and reloading when the film was used up; the company’s slogan was “You press the button, we do the rest.” In 1889 Eastman introduced roll film on a transparent base, which has remained the standard for film. He  introduced the Brownie camera  which was intended for use by children and sold for one dollar.

Eastman continued to improve photography and motion picture film,  introducing innovations including a process for color photography which he called kodakchrome  A generous philanthropist, Eastman gave away more than $100 million to charities, mostly in Rochester, during his lifetime.

As he aged, he had increasing difficulty standing and walking. Facing the prospect of life in a wheelchair, he took of his own life with an automatic pistol on March 14, 1932. His death note read, “To my friends. My work is done –, Why wait?”