In these days of digital
photography, it is good to remember one of the giants of analog photography,
Kodak. The following article was written
for the centennial of the company. We
should also remember that without the 35mm film, first pioneered by Kodak, the
Leica might never have happened.
Reprinted from THE BARNACK
AND BEREK NEWSLETTER June 1980
ONE HUNDRED YELLOW CANDLES
By Rolf Fricke
In the year 1880, when Oskar
Barnack was but one year old and when the Leitz company was 31 years old, a
modest 26 year old bank clerk began to manufacture photographic dry plates in a
rented third floor loft in downtown Rochester, New York. Today, 100 years later, that one product
enterprise has grown into a worldwide organization of 125,000 employees who
produce about 25,000 different products.
The story is a classic success tale, the kind we recite to children to
prove the merits of thrift, determination, and plain hard work.
George Eastman c. 1880
That young clerk was George
Eastman, and the company that is now celebrating its 100th anniversary is the
Eastman Kodak Company. It all began with
plans for a long awaited Caribbean vacation trip that George Eastman hoped to
take in 1877. At the suggestion of a
friend, he had bought a photographic wet plate outfit to record his big
adventure. That outfit consisted of a
large camera, dark tent for coating and later processing wet plates, chemicals,
glass tanks, heavy plate holders, jug of water; and he had to pay $5 for
lessons on how to use his new equipment.
In spite of the very cumbersome method, Eastman became so involved with
photography that he did not go on that Caribbean trip at that time, choosing
instead to go to Mackinac Island later on when he became more adapt with his
new hobby.
Not much later, Eastman read
news from England about a new photographic plate that was dry and which did not
require the messy and laborious coating and field processing in a tent. This convenience seemed so appealing that he
began to experiment in his mother’s kitchen at night, while still working at
the bank during the day. He was
methodical and ingenious and eventually he produced a successful series of dry
plates. In the course of his
experiments, he had an idea for a machine for coating such plates evenly and in
quantity. He took that idea to London,
because that was a center of the photographic and business world. There he obtained his first patent.
Only one year later, in
1880,George Eastman was granted an American patent for his new coating machine
and he proceeded to rent a third floor loft in Rochester to begin the
commercial manufacture of his dry plates, thus establishing the basis for the
centennial that is being celebrated in 1980.
Kodak ad from 1887
His company was called the
Eastman Dry Plate Company, which, with the addition of 14 shareholders in 1984,
became the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company.
He surprised the trade by announcing film in rolls, along with a roll
holder adaptable to nearly every existing plate camera. In 1889, the name was changed again to the
Eastman Company and in 1892 it received the current name Eastman Kodak Company.
The year 1888 was significant
for the company because that is when Eastman created the trademark “Kodak.” He wanted a distinctive trademark that was
easy to pronounce and spell in any language.
He liked the letter K and he coined the now universally familiar name
“Kodak.”
The other major development
of the year 1888 was the introduction of the “Kodak” camera. This was the very first practical hand
camera, small and simple enough to be used by anyone. It was designed specifically for the new
flexible film on stripping paper.
Factory-loaded, it cost $25 complete with case and shoulder strap. When all the pictures had been exposed, the
camera had to be returned to Rochester, where the film was processed and the
camera reloaded, all for $10. This gave
rise to the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest!”
A development of special
importance took place in 1889, when Thomas Edison approached Eastman to work
out a configuration of the new flexible film for use in a device to go with
Edison’s invention of the phonograph to make the latter more appealing to the
public. At first Edison had photographed
the pictures in a continuous spiral on a cylinder. But then he got the idea of using a
continuous strip of film, perforated on the sides to make pictures in
succession as the film moved through the camera. Prints from the negatives could then be viewed
through a lens in his kinetoscope. After
experimenting with various widths, Edison’s English assistant Dickson had
suggested 1 3/8 inches, which translates into 34.9mm and thus 35mm motion
picture film was born!
George Eastman and Thomas A.
Edison
Eastman introduced his first
daylight-loading camera in 1891, making photography even more convenient by
eliminating the need to load and unload the camera in complete darkness, and in
1896 Kodak perfected the first positive motion picture film, an important step
for the fledgeling motion picture industry.
His first folding camera, the
No 4 Folding Kodak Camera, had been introduced just one year earlier. At first Kodak cameras were manufactured for
Eastman by another company, owned by his friend Frank Brownell, whose grandson,
a senior vice president of a Rochester bank, was inspired by the handwritten
correspondence between Eastman and Brownell and other artifacts that he
inherited from his grandfather, and he gradually assembled an impressive
collection of significant vintage cameras.
Eastman built his own six-story camera works in 1893 and one of the
first relevant cameras that it produced was the Pocket Kodak camera of
1895. It was partly made of aluminum, it
was very compact and it was the first Kodak camera to incorporate the little
red window in the back to watch for the exposure number when winding the film.
An agreement was signed in
1896 to supply plates and paper for the new x-ray technique invented by Wilhelm
Konrad Röntgen only one year earlier.
The very popular Folding Pocket Kodak cameras were introduced in 1898,
followed by the famous Brownie cameras in 1900.
With their price of only $1, they brought photography within the reach
of almost everyone.
Kodak ad for the Brownie from
1900
In retrospect, seven
principles seem to characterize Eastman’s business philosophy:
-Mass production for low unit cost
-International distribution
-Extensive advertising
-Recognizing and meeting the needs
of customers
-Ensuring growth through continuing
research
-Fair treatment of employees
-Reinvesting profits to improve and expand
business
These principles were evident
from the very beginning, as demonstrated by his very first patent, which
described a machine to coat plates in quantity.
He founded his first overseas subsidiary only five years after beginning
his manufacturing activities. This was
in London, soon followed by additional ones in France, Australia, Canada,
Germany and others, leading to today’s Kodak representation in over 50 countries.
Kodak Coating Machine
Eastman was daring for his
time because he believed in vigorous advertising. He chose the famous trademark Kodak and his
trade dress for packaging – yellow – is recognized virtually everywhere. He favored slogans like “You press the
button, we do the rest.” While such
techniques are common today, they were novel in the day.
He correctly perceived the
enormous potential of photography if it were made accessible to the average
person and by bringing out inexpensive products he met this customer need, as
it would be called in today’s jargon.
Another visionary act was the employment of a fulltime research chemist
in 1885 to aid the development of a flexible film base. That was also unusual for those days and
Eastman further substantiated his belief in 1912 by hiring the prominent
British scientist Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees to organize and direct a research
laboratory in Rochester. This has proven
eminently successful with countless new developments in emulsion technology.
The fortuitous combination of
these factors led to many new products, including quite a number of significant
ones for amateur photography:
1916 - The first camera
equipped with a built-in, coupled rangefinder: the No. 3A Autographic Kodak
Special camera;
1934 - The Kodak Retina, a
relatively inexpensive 35mm camera from Stuttgart, Germany, which brought the
convenience of 35mm photography to a much larger number of amateur
photographers;
1935 - Kodachrome film, the
first widely successful amateur color film;
1938 - The first camera with
built-in, coupled photoelectric exposure control: the Kodak Six-20 camera;
1941 – The Kodak Ektra
camera, an early 35mm camera with lever film advance and shutter cocking, zoom
viewfinder, interchangeable magazine backs, a very wide base, accurate, coupled
rangefinder and many other advanced features.
However, it was short-lived.
In order not to become a
book, this article will only touch on highlights of Kodak history, bearing in
mind that readers of the Barnack and Berek Newsletter [and this blog] have a
special interest in matters related to the Leica camera. Therefore it seems appropriate to dwell on
certain aspects of Kodak history that affect the Leica camera.
To begin with, the foundation
for the Leica camera was established when Thomas Edison and George Eastman
introduced perforated 35mm film in 1889.
Although it was intended for motion picture cameras, it became the basis
for a number of still cameras and at least 11 different brands came on the
market before the first really successful one appeared. That was the Leica camera. George P. Smith of Richmond Heights,
Missouri, patented a camera for the 24 x 36mm format in 1912; the Tourist Multiple
and Homeos cameras appeared in 1913, followed in 1914 by the Simplex Multi
Exposure camera, which seems to be the first commercially available 24 x 36mm
format camera. Next came the Minnigraph,
Phototank, Sico, Esco, Furet, Cent Vues and Eka, most of them designed for eye
level viewing and some of them utilizing unperforated 35mm film [Kodak 828
film]. Formats varied between 18 x 24mm
and 10 x 45mm. The next camera was the
Leica, introduced at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925 and it had the most fortuitous
combination of features, precision and size.
The original 18 exposure
Kodachrome
The introduction of the 35mm
version of Kodachrome film in 1936 gave great impetus to 35mm photography. The story of its inventors is so fascinating
that it could be made into a movie: Two
young musicians, both named Leopold, one a pianist, son of a violinist, the
other a violinist, son of a pianist, were so disappointed with the early color
movies they had just seen, that they in their youthful naiveté and enthusiasm
decided to produce a better color film.
After years of intermittent experimentation, Leopold Mannes and Leopold
Godowsky were introduced to George Eastman, who, surprisingly, did not
recognize their potential and took no action.
But on another occasion, they met Dr. Mees, the founder of the Kodak
Research Laboratories, who was so impressed by their talent and enthusiasm that
he offered them the use of the facilities of those laboratories to further
their experiments if they would agree to come to Rochester. After considerable reluctance because they
wished to continue their vocation in music, Mannes and Godowsky accepted the
offer on the condition that it would be limited to five years. That term was stretched to eight years,
culminated by the introduction of Kodachrome film in 1935, whose improved
versions are still highly popular today, 45 years later.
Leopold Mannes (left) and
Leopold Godowsky in their Kodak lab
The two men eventually left
Rochester to return to their musical careers, but not before receiving honorary
cameras presented by Leitz in recognition of their achievement: Godowsky
received camera No. 175000.
Unfortunately Godowsky’s camera was stolen afterwards, but Leitz
replaced it with a Leica M5 in November 1975.
Leopold Mannes passed away in 1964; Leopold Godowsky and his wife
Frances, sister of George and Ira Gershwin, live comfortably in Westport,
Connecticut.
Another item of interest to
Leicaphiles is the little known fact that for a time the Leica camera’s shutter
curtain material came from Rochester, where the Folmer & Schwing Company,
better known as Graflex, was a temporary subsidiary of Kodak. They produced an excellent shutter curtain
material for their own as well as other cameras, including Leica. Notation No. 99 of July 1941 in the Leitz
camera assembly foreman’s logbook states that the “Kodak cloth” was used up
with camera No. 379229 (a IIIc) and that they began replacing it with a German
rubberized cloth.
The company that started so
modestly with George Eastman became increasingly self-sufficient: its own
camera works in 1912, followed by a gelatin plant, a paper mill and a power
plant in the Kodak Park works in 1918.
The Tennessee Eastman Company was created in 1920 with the acquisition
of a plant to manufacture alcohol for film base, later expanding into plastics,
synthetic fibers, dyes, acetate film base and industrial chemicals. Another gelatin plant was purchased in
Peabody, Mass., which now supplies two thirds of this important ingredient for
photographic film, plates and papers.
The gelatin used in emulsions has to be purer than that contained in
such popular foods as Jello. Interesting
byproducts of the company’s chemical production are vitamins which are sold in
bulk to pharmaceutical companies.
Amateur movies became
practical with the introduction of 16mm reversal film on safety base. A Cine Kodak motion picture camera and a
Kodascope projector were also introduced that year, leading to the
establishment of a worldwide network of processing laboratories to satisfy the
popularity they came to enjoy, which was enhanced even further with the
production of 16mm Kodachrome movie film in 1935 and Kodacolor movie film in
1938. The first 8mm amateur movie film,
cameras and projectors were introduced in 1932 and their lower cost made the
hobby available to an even greater segment of the population.
Color film technology
continued to improve with the introduction of Kodacolor negative film for color
prints in 1942 and Kodak Ektachrome film for transparencies in 1945. Both could be processed by the photographer himself
and their quality and sensitivity was steadily improved, the latter growing
from ASA 32 to today’s ASA 400. 1961 was
the year of the introduction of the award-winning Kodak Carousel Projector
which became widely accepted. A version
of this projector made by Kodak AG in Stuttgart, Germany, is on display in the
Museum of Modern Art in New York City as an example of good industrial
design. Leitz introduced its first
projector that accepts the round Kodak Carousel slide trays in March 1980, the
RT 300, utilizing its own superb optics in a mechanism built for Leitz by the
former Graflex plant in Rochester, New York.
Countless historic
photographs were made on Kodak film, including the first black and white
photographic survey of portions of the lunar landscape, which were made with
the self-contained dual lens camera, film processor and readout in the Lunar
Orbiter II module built for NASA by Kodak.
Later came even more historic color pictures of the first humans ever to
set foot on the moon and the dramatic view of the earth seen from the moon.
Earthrise
In keeping with Eastman’s
philosophy of making photography easy to use and accessible to the masses,
films were packaged ever more conveniently, first by the introduction of
magazines for 16mm movie cameras in 1938, followed by 8mm magazines in 1940. Still photography was greatly simplified by
the introduction of molded drop-in cassettes in 1963, which had notches that
keyed the sensitivity into appropriately equipped cameras. These were the Kodak Instamatic cameras,
whose production passed the 50 million mark in 1970. A more efficient movie cassette with similar
characteristics was introduced in the form of super 8 cartridges in 1965. Amateur movies were further improved by the
addition of sound capability through pre-striped super 8 film in new cartridges
in 1969, along with new sound movie projectors.
Amateur still photography became even handier with the introduction of
Kodak Pocket Instamatic cameras for 110-size film cartridges containing
improved 16mm film in 1972.
All along processing and
printing equipment for amateur film became increasingly efficient and highly
complex, as evidenced by the introduction of a computer controlled color
printer in 1974, capable of printing nearly two prints per second.
In the health science field,
quicker diagnosis of certain injuries was facilitated by the introduction of
the Kodak RP X-Omat processor in 1965 which provided dry, ready to read
radiographs in 90 seconds.
In 1979 sales passed the$8
billion mark and employment approached 125,000.
Meanwhile microfilm had become a major factor in information storage and
retrieval, beginning in 1935 with the introduction of 35mm for recording
newspapers and later checks and other bank documents. More sophisticated microfilmers evolved,
eventually incorporating electronic and computer technology for high speed
automatic retrieval at low cost, ranging from desk top machines to large
computer output microfilmers.
Kodak entered the fertile
office copier market in 1975 by announcing the Kodak Ektaprint copier which
produces high quality copies on regular bond paper. A year later came another milestone when
Kodak entered the popular field of instant photography with the Kodak EK4 and
EK6 cameras and Instant Print Film for quick, self-developing color prints.
Moon Buggy
Much of the prolific flow of
new products is due to Eastman’s foresight in creating the research laboratory
network, which today employs 6600 persons in several countries, investing over
$1 million each day in its quest for new or improved products which it turns
out at the astonishing rate of nearly one new product every three working days.
A single one of the original
shares at the beginning of this story would have multiplied to more than 24,500
shares valued at some $1.2 million in today’s market. Having been denied pleasure in his hard
working youth and middle age, in later years George Eastman went hunting for
things he had missed, such as music and flowers and paintings, as well as
outdoor life. Yet he was not
ostentatious, he was a tough competitor, hard-bitten and practical in business,
but congenially reticent in his home and in outdoor enjoyment. He became a great philanthropist, starting
early with contributions to what is now the Rochester Institute of Technology. Under the name of “Mr. Smith” he anonymously
gave $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He gave dental clinics to Rochester, London,
Paris, Rome, Brussels and Stockholm. He
supported a school of music, a theater and a symphony orchestra in
Rochester. In addition to decisive
contributions for a medical school and a hospital for the University of
Rochester, he also generously aided the Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes.
The company he founded, like
any group of human beings, had its share of problems and setbacks, but its
performance is magnificently positive.
With such impressive accomplishments occurring at an accelerated rate,
it is exciting to conjecture what its next century will bring, or more
realistically, in terms of our own life span, what improvements and
conveniences the next years will bring.
Happy birthday, Kodak!
Rolf Fricke is a former
marketing director of Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY and one of the founders of
the LHSA (Leica Historical Society of America)
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It seems that after the centennial in 1980 Kodak went steadily downhill.
ReplyDeleteKodak still had some successes after that. Lets not forget about their Nikon based digital camera, the first with a full frame sensor and 12 megapixels. I don't know why they didn't develop it any further unless Nikon was not interested in further cooperation with Kodak because the introduced their own digital cameras. But Kodak definitely made a lot of mistakes, as did many other companies, by not realizing how much of a steamroller digital photography was to become. They tried to hold on to their film business too long and even though they had a rather sophisticated research and development branch for their digital sensors, that ultimately was not able to save the rest of the company. The Kodak we knew definitely died, and the remnants of the company are virtually unknown.
DeleteI read that Kodak is making cameras again, point and shoot digital.
ReplyDeleteThat is not Kodak. Kodak sold the rights to their name, including the characteristic KODAK script to a far eastern company. They are making cameras with the Kodak label now, but there is no connection to the actual Kodak company.
DeleteDoesn't Mr. Fricke have a huge Leica collection?
ReplyDeleteYes, most likely the largest Leica collection in the US.
DeleteI thought that collection was sold to Leica Camera in Germany.
DeleteLeica Camera did indeed buy a large Leica collection in the US, but the name of the original owner was never made public.
DeleteMy father, longtime employee and retiree of EK recently passed away. He was a collector of coins, stamps, and other memorabilia. We found his 1980 100 year anniversary EK umbrella in the original plastic cover. It clearly had never been used. The 40 year old umbrella was a great “find” for the family.
ReplyDelete