"You Press the Button..."
High school drop out and bank clerk George Eastman's technological breakthrough in the late 1870s and 1880s was the development of dry film.
Previous to Eastman's invention, photography was an expensive, cumbersome and messy hobby. Cameras were enormous and the wet film required processing straight away.
In September 1888, New York-based Eastman registered the made-up brand name "Kodak" and offered the first branded camera, a handheld box-shaped model sold with the promise, "You press the button - we do the rest."
Further developments during the rest of the century and into the 1900s saw Kodak film improve, cameras get smaller and easier to use and the brand grow into one synonymous with the new medium of snapshot photography.
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A brand name that has come to define a photogenic moment, Kodak made the once expensive and complicated hobby of photography accessible and affordable to the common man.
From the late 1800s to the 1980s, Kodak dominated the consumer photography market — an innovative and admirable icon of American industry. It has won Emmys and Academy Awards, sent cameras into space and is credited with creating the digital camera.
With the sad news that the company is now struggling to stay afloat, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at the consumer history of Kodak, a firm that once represented the American dream, but who’s future looks like a nightmare.
Thumbnail image courtesy of Joost J. Bakker
More About: Business, features, history, Kodak, photography
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