Eastman Kodak – Dale’s Daily Data

Taking a picture today is a matter of just taking out your phone and snapping away.  Save it to put on your computer….or send it to a friend.  Most kids today can’t even conceive of the concept of film.  It used to be you had to load your camera with film.  You’d get 12, 24 or 36 exposures usually and when you used them all up you’d take it to a film processor.  Usually you’d go to a drug store and they’d take care of it for you.  Come back in a couple of days and there you have it….all the pictures you took.  Sometimes you’d get double prints.  Sometimes they’d even give you a new roll of film.

But make sure you load or unload your film in the dark.  You could use a red light to see what you were doing, but anything else would damage the film.

Boy things have changed haven’t they?  It all started with a guy by the name of George Eastman.  He’s the guy who started up a little company we know today as Kodak. 

We usually associate Kodak with Rochester, but Kodak actually began in Jamestown in 1882.  The company eventually left Jamestown and moved to Rochester.
In 1888, Kodak introduced the first hand-held camera that anybody could use.  Before that cameras were big bulky boxes that only experts knew how to use.  But these new Kodak cameras could take up to 100 pictures.  They were 2 ½ inch round photos and every couple of years Kodak introduced new and improved models.

Eastman even came up with the slogan “You press the button, we do the rest.”

The biggest obstacle to the survival of the company was the introduction of digital cameras.  Kodak jumped on board with cameras made by a Japanese company, but eventually bought that company. 

An end of an era came in 2004 when Kodak decided to pull out of the traditional camera business in North America and Western Europe.