EASTMAN KODAK IS STILL ONE OF THE GREATEST COMPANIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY. IT BECAME A GIANT

George Eastman was born in Waterville, Oneida County, New York. He was the fourth and youngest child of George Washington Eastman and Maria Kilbourn. In 1874, Eastman became intrigued with early photography but found the process awkward. It required coating a glass plate with a liquid emulsion that had to be quickly used before it dried. After three years of experimentation with British gelatin emulsions Eastman developed a dry photographic plate and patented it in both England and the US. In 1880 he began a photographic business. And in 1884 Eastman patented a photographic medium that replaced fragile glass plates with a photo-emulsion coated on paper rolls. The invention of roll film greatly sped up the process of recording multiple images. Eastman then received a patent in 1888 for a camera designed to use roll film. He coined the marketing phrase, "You press the button, we do the rest." The camera owner could send in the camera with a processing fee of $10. The company would develop the film, print 100 pictures, and also send along a new roll of 100-exposures film. On September 4, 1888 Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. The letter "K" had been a favorite of Eastman's. He said, "It seems a strong, incisive sort of letter". Eastman and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He used three principal concepts to create the name: it must be short, it could not be mispronounced, and it could not resemble anything else or be associated with anything but Kodak. Eastman introduced the Brownie in 1900 at a price of just $1. It became a great success.

In 1925, Eastman gave up his daily management of Kodak, to become chairman of the board. He thereafter concentrated on philanthropic activities, to which he had already donated substantial sums. He was one of the major philanthropists of his time, ranking only slightly behind Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and a few others, but did not seek publicity for his activities. He concentrated on institution-building and causes which could help people's health. He donated to the University of Rochester, establishing the Eastman School of Music and School of Dentistry; to Tuskegee Institute; and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), donations which provided capital to build several of their first buildings at their second campus along the Charles River. In his final two years, Eastman was in intense pain, caused by a degenerative disorder affecting his spine. He had trouble standing and his walking became a slow shuffle. Today it might be diagnosed as spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal caused by calcification in the vertebrae.  On March 14, 1932 Eastman committed suicide. He left a suicide note that read, "To my Friends, My work is done. Why wait?"