George Eastman Research Paper

On July 12, 1854 in the village of Waterville Maria Kilbourn and George Washington Eastman had a child that would change the way the world took pictures forever, and that child was George Eastman. When George was five his father sold the family nursery business and moved to Rochester where he founded the Eastman Commercial College. Shortly thereafter George's father died and the College failed leaving George and his mother in financial despair. So because of family circumstances George had to drop out of school at the age of fourteen and find a job. His first job was as a messenger boy with an insurance firm, which paid three dollars a week. A year later George got a job as an office boy for a different insurance firm. There through his
One year later he was granted an American patent. In 1880, George leased the third floor on State Street in Rochester where he began his commercial manufacturing of dry plates. One of his first purchases was a two horse power second hand engine, "'I really needed only one horse power', he later recalled ‘this was a two horse-power, but I thought perhaps business would grow up to it. It was worth a chance, so I took it'" (Eastman). In 1881 George formed a partnership with Henry A. Strong called the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Later that year, George quit the Rochester Savings Bank to devote all his time to his new company. While managing all phases of the firms activities, he continued with his research to simplify photography and developing. As his company grew, it faced financial doom at least once when his dry plates went bad in the hands of the dealers. Eastman had then recalled and replaced all of them. "'Making good on those plates took our last dollar,' he said. ‘But what was left was more important-reputation'" (Eastman). In 1883, Eastman startled everyone with the announcement of film in rolls. The rolls of film were adaptable with almost every plate camera in the world. IN 1884, the company was renamed Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company with 14 share-holders. In 1888, George invented the work ‘KODAK' out of thin air because of his special liking to the letter ‘K', and had it
In 1889, with the transparent roll of film finally perfected by Eastman and his chemists, it made it possible for the development of Thomas Edison's motion picture camera in 1891. In 1895, the KODAK pocket camera was introduced which used the rolled film and had a small window in which you could see how many pictures were left. With the discovery of the X-ray process in 1896, KODAK entered into an agreement to supply the plates and paper for the machines. Finally in 1900, photography becomes financially accessible to everyone with the introduction of the Brownie camera, which sold for a dollar and used film at 15 cents per roll. In 1907 the company's worldwide employment reaches 5,000 people. The Blair Camera Factory in Rochester is renamed in 1911 to Hawkeye Works. In 1917 KODAK develops aerial cameras for US Signal Corps photographers to use during World War I. KODAK also supplies the US Navy with a cellulose acetate which is a film product used for coating airplane wings along with unbreakable lenses for their gas masks. In 1921 under and anit-trust case, the courts rule that KODAK is to divest six of the companies it has acquired and to end practicing requiring KODAK dealers to sell nothing but KODAK products. By 1927 KODAK employees were 20,000 people worldwide. IN 1932 the company introduces the first 8mm motion picture camera for