Inventions and Inventors Volume 1 - Online Public Access Catalog

Brownie camera / 131
shots. It had no viewfinder; however, an optional clip-on reflecting
viewfinder was available. The camera came loaded with a six-exposure
roll of Kodak film that produced square negatives 2.5 inches on
a side. This film could be developed, printed, and mounted for forty
cents, and a new roll could be purchased for fifteen cents.
George Eastman’s first career choice had been banking, but when
he failed to receive a promotion he thought he deserved, he decided
to devote himself to his hobby, photography. Having worked with a
rigorous wet-plate process, he knew why there were few amateur
photographers at the time—the whole process, from plate preparation
to printing, was too expensive and too much trouble. Even so,
he had already begun to think about the commercial possibilities of
photography; after reading of British experiments with dry-plate
technology, he set up a small chemical laboratory and came up with
a process of his own. The Eastman Dry Plate Company became one
of the most successful producers of gelatin dry plates.
Dry-plate photography had attracted more amateurs, but it was
still a complicated and expensive hobby. Eastman realized that the
number of photographers would have to increase considerably if
the market for cameras and supplies were to have any potential. In
the early 1880’s, Eastman first formulated the policies that would
make the Eastman Kodak Company so successful in years to come:
mass production, low prices, foreign and domestic distribution, and
selling through extensive advertising and by demonstration.
In his efforts to expand the amateur market, Eastman first tackled
the problem of the glass-plate negative, which was heavy, fragile,
and expensive to make. By 1884, his experiments with paper
negatives had been successful enough that he changed the name of
his company to The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. Since
flexible roll film needed some sort of device to hold it steady in the
camera’s focal plane, Eastman collaborated with William Walker
to develop the Eastman-Walker roll-holder. Eastman’s pioneering
manufacture and use of roll films led to the appearance on the market
in the 1880’s of a wide array of hand cameras from a number of
different companies. Such cameras were called “detective cameras”
because they were small and could be used surreptitiously. The
most famous of these, introduced by Eastman in 1888, was named
the “Kodak”—a word he coined to be terse, distinctive, and easily