1954 GEORGE EASTMAN magazine article, Kodak, photo history

Description

Selling is a 1954 magazine article about:
George Eastman, Kodak
Title: Eastman of Rochester: Photographic Pioneer
Author: ALLAN C. FISHER, JR.
Subtitled “A Gifted Bank Clerk, Born a Century Ago, Revolutionized Picture Taking and Made "Kodak" a Household Name”
Quoting the first page “It would be entirely possible to visit Rochester, New York, without ever discussing George Eastman. But it would not be easy. For in this camera-conscious city Eastman's name comes up as naturally and inevitably as Ford's in Detroit or Du Pont's in Wilmington.
"What was he really like?" I asked one of Eastman's long-time associates, Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees.
Dr. Mees, vice president for research at Eastman Kodak Company, studied the ceiling of his office a moment. "You could say he was a gifted inventor, I suppose. Or a production genius. Or even a wizard at business organization. And you'd be right. But he was something more important: he was an enthusiastic amateur."
For the father of popular photography it might seem an unlikely characterization. George Eastman revolutionized an entire industry and amassed one of the great fortunes of our times. During 1954, the centennial of his birth, spokesmen for science, government, and business are solemnly commemorating his meteoric career.
Yet Dr. Mees stressed a basic fact. It took Eastman, an avid amateur cameraman as a youth, to bring to the infant photographic industry a new and highly unprofessional viewpoint. For it was Eastman's firm belief that everyone should be able to take pictures.
When George Eastman went into business for himself in 1880, photography was a cumbersome, technical handicraft, with relatively few followers. Within a decade he and his associates had so simplified photographic processes that even a bright child could take snapshots. His greatest contributions: introduction of flexible film in roll holders and a revolutionary little camera, the Kodak.
By coincidence the year 1888 saw both the advent of the Kodak camera and the birth of the National Geographic Society. In the new era of photography ushered in by Eastman's camera and film, your Society was soon publishing historic "firsts" in pictures from all corners of the globe.
But not even Eastman could have foretold the tremendous impact of his work. Today the United States alone contains 35 million amateur photographers, busily recording babies and bathing beauties, mountain peaks and family pets. The 1954 output of these devotees, plus that of 55,000 professional photographers, is expected to total some two billion pictures.
On July 12, 1954, the 100th anniversary of Eastman's birth, the Government honored his achievements by issuing a 3-cent postage stamp bearing his portrait. Representatives of the photographic industry joined in first-day-of-issue ceremonies at Rochester.
Today the little firm he founded on vision and a shoestring-the Eastman Kodak Company-is the world's largest manufacturer of photographic products, with plants both here and abroad. Its three huge installations in Rochester alone employ 37,000.
George Eastman's rags-to-riches saga rivaled anything from the pages of Horatio Alger. He was only seven when his father died, leaving the family almost penniless. To eke out a living for her son and two daughters, the widow took in boarders at her home in Rochester. By the time he was 13, George had assumed a breadwinner's role and was hard at work as an office boy, earning a week. At 19 he was employed as a -a-week clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank.
Four years later he invested .36 of his savings in the complex paraphernalia of wet-plate photography. His outfit included a big stereoscopic camera, tripod, glass jars, dishes, funnels, scales, chemicals, and darkroom tent.
The process then necessary to take pictures was as messy as a taffy pull on a hot summer day. Photographers used glass plates as a negative base. They coated these plates with…"
7” x 10”, 16 pages, 23 B&W photos
These are pages carefully removed from an actual 1954 magazine.
54I1
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