George Eastman was an American inventor who created many photographic innovations, including easy-to-use cameras, dry film, and plates. He founded the Eastman Kodak Company and donated over $100 million to schools, parks, hospitals, and charitable programs. He died by suicide in 1932.
George Eastman is an American inventor who made significant advances in photography. He is credited with creating many photographic innovations such as easy-to-use cameras, dry film and plates. His inventions have earned him a good deal of money over the years and he has generously donated funds to universities, charities, public institutions and business development projects.
George Eastman was born on July 12, 1854 in Waterville, New York. Also in 1854, his father, George Washington Eastman, opened Eastman’s Commercial College in Rochester, New York. In 1860, the Eastman family moved to Rochester to be closer to the College, but George Washington Eastman died unexpectedly in 1862. Young George, his two sisters, and his mother didn’t have much money to live on, and George Eastman ended up leaving the school at 14 to support the family. He first worked in an insurance company as a delivery boy and then worked for Rochester Savings Bank as a junior clerk.
When he bought a camera at age 24 in anticipation of a vacation that never came, he found himself interested in the ideas behind photography. He thought the camera was heavy and expensive for what he did and started experimenting with gelatin emulsions as an alternative way to develop negatives. It took him three years of trying various procedures in his mother’s kitchen to get the results he was looking for.
George Eastman eventually invented and patented a machine that developed negatives using a dry plate coating process. This process allowed the photographs to have a faster developing time than the previous wet method of developing photographs. The Eastman Dry Plate Company was created in 1881 and George Eastman had a financial partner named Henry Strong. Four years later, the company name was changed to Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company as Eastman’s company had invented and patented rolled film.
It wasn’t until 1892 that the word, Kodak, became part of George Eastman’s company, as that year the company name was changed to the Eastman Kodak Company. Eastman had come up with the name Kodak for his camera after spending some time trying to come up with a strong sounding name for the product. The original Kodak camera went on the market in 1888 and sold for $25.00 US Dollars (USD). It had 100 exposures and the consumer sent the camera to Eastman Kodak for development. George Eastman’s easy-to-use Brownie camera came out in 1900 and sold for $1.00 USD. Brownie film cost 15 cents a roll.
George Eastman has donated over $100 million to schools, parks, hospitals and charitable programs. He started a charitable group called Community Chest in Rochester which later became the United Way. He also initiated the first employee profit sharing program in America. Eastman worked long hours and when he retired he went on safaris in Africa. After being diagnosed with terminal spinal disease, George Eastman took his own life on March 14, 1932.
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