George Eastman was born on July 12, 1854, and died on March 14, 1932. He was an American inventor and business owner who created the Eastman Kodak Company. He helped make roll film photography popular, which allowed more people to take pictures easily. After trying many ideas for over ten years, he created and sold a camera that used roll film, making photography available to the public for the first time. He worked as treasurer and later president of Kodak, guiding the company’s growth and the film industry’s development.

Eastman gave money to support many organizations. He helped start the Eastman School of Music, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and schools for dentistry and medicine at the University of Rochester. He also supported Eastman Dental Hospital at University College London. He donated funds to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), buildings at the second campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and two historically Black universities in the South: Tuskegee University and Hampton University. He also funded clinics in London and other European cities to help low-income people.

In his last two years, Eastman suffered severe pain from a spine disorder. On March 14, 1932, he shot himself in the heart. He left a note saying, "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?"

George Eastman is considered one of the most important people in Rochester, New York. He is honored on many college campuses and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The George Eastman Museum is recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Early life

George Eastman was born in Waterville, New York, as the youngest child of George Washington Eastman and Maria Eastman (née Kilbourn). He was born on a 10-acre farm that his parents purchased in 1849. He had two older sisters, Ellen Maria and Katie. Although he was mostly self-educated, he attended a private school in Rochester after the age of eight.

In the early 1840s, his father started a business school called the Eastman Commercial College in Rochester, New York. Rochester became one of the first cities in the United States to grow quickly because of its industrial development. When his father's health got worse, the family left the farm and moved to Rochester in 1860. His father passed away from a brain disorder on April 27, 1862. To help pay for George's education, his mother allowed people to live in their home to help cover expenses.

The second daughter, Katie, had polio as a child and died in late 1870 when George was 15 years old. At that time, George left school and began working to support his family. Later, as Eastman's photography business became successful, he promised to help his mother for the difficulties she faced while raising him.

Career

In the 1870s, while working as a bank clerk, Eastman became interested in photography. He studied with George Monroe and George Selden and, in 1879, created a machine to coat dry plates. In 1881, he started the Eastman Dry Plate Company with Henry Strong, who became president, and Eastman, who managed the company as treasurer. Around the same time, Eastman began experimenting to make a flexible film roll that could replace plates. In 1885, he received a patent for the film roll and worked on designing a camera to use it. In 1888, he patented and released the Kodak camera. The camera came preloaded with enough film for 100 photos. After all photos were taken, the user mailed the camera back to the Eastman company in Rochester along with $10. The company processed the film, made prints of each photo, loaded a new film roll into the camera, and returned the camera and prints to the user.

This new method made photography easier for people who were not professionals, and the Kodak camera became very popular. By August 1888, Eastman struggled to meet demand, and he and his team began developing other cameras. The Eastman Dry Plate Company grew quickly and was reorganized as the Eastman Company in 1889. It was later incorporated as Eastman Kodak in 1892.

Eastman realized that selling film rolls would bring more income than selling cameras, so he focused on film production. By offering high-quality and affordable film to all camera makers, Kodak turned competitors into partners. In 1889, Eastman and chemist Henry Reichenbach patented the first nitrocellulose film. Later, legal disputes over patents occupied Eastman and his lawyers, including a lawsuit from Ansco, a rival film company. Ansco had purchased a patent for nitrocellulose film filed in 1887 by Hannibal Goodwin, which was granted in 1898. Ansco sued Kodak in 1900, and Kodak lost the case after a decade-long trial that cost the company $5 million.

Eastman carefully managed Kodak's advertising. He created the slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest," which became widely used.

As Kodak used patents and acquisitions to control film production, the company grew rapidly. By 1896, Kodak was the top film supplier worldwide. By 1915, it employed over 8,000 people in Rochester and earned $15.7 million annually. In 1934, after Eastman's death, Kodak employed 23,000 workers. The motion picture industry became a major market for Kodak's film. In 1908, when Thomas Edison and others formed the Motion Picture Patents Company, Eastman secured Kodak as the sole film supplier. His efforts to control the industry led to an anti-trust investigation by the federal government in 1911. The government sued Kodak in 1913, and in 1921, a court ordered Kodak to stop price-fixing and sell some of its business interests.

Kodak continued to grow in the 20th century through innovations like the Brownie camera, designed for children. Eastman supported color photography starting in 1904, funding research that led to Kodachrome, a two-color film developed by John Capstaff. In 1935, Kodak released the first integral tripack film, a more advanced version of Kodachrome. During World War I, Eastman founded a photographic school in Rochester to train pilots for aerial reconnaissance.

As labor unions became more active, Eastman worked to address workers' needs. He introduced a welfare fund in 1910 to provide compensation for injured workers and a profit-sharing program in 1912 for all employees.

Personal life

Eastman never married. He was very close to his mother and to his sister, Ellen Maria, and her family. He had a long, non-romantic relationship with Josephine Dickman, who was a trained singer and the wife of his business partner, George Dickman. He became especially close to Josephine after his mother, Maria Eastman, passed away in 1907. Eastman enjoyed traveling, listening to music, attending social events, and playing the piano.

George was deeply affected by his mother’s death. He was very focused on proper behavior and found it difficult to control his emotions around his friends for the first time. He later said, “When my mother died, I cried all day. I could not have stopped to save my life.” During his mother’s lifetime, she did not accept many of his gifts, so Eastman felt he could never do enough for her. After her death, he continued to honor her memory. On September 4, 1922, he opened the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, which included a chamber-music hall called the Kilbourn Theater, named in honor of his mother. At the Eastman House, he kept a rose bush, using a cutting from the garden of his mother’s childhood home.

Later years

Eastman served as a presidential elector in 1900 and 1916. In 1915, he founded the Bureau of Municipal Research in Rochester to collect information and suggest changes to government policies. The organization was later renamed the Center for Governmental Research and continues to perform this work today. In 1924, Eastman and the Bureau supported a vote to change Rochester’s government to a city manager system, which was approved by voters.

In 1920, Eastman created the Eastman Savings and Loan to offer financial services to Kodak employees. This institution was later reorganized as ESL Federal Credit Union.

During the 1920s, Eastman participated in efforts to improve the calendar system. He supported the 13-month-per-year International Fixed Calendar, proposed by Moses B. Cotsworth. On January 17, 1925, Eastman invited Cotsworth to his home after learning about the calendar from a friend. He secretly funded Cotsworth for a year and then publicly supported the 13-month plan. Eastman helped plan and fund campaigns to promote the new global calendar and led the National Committee on Calendar Simplification in the United States, which was created by the League of Nations. He supported Cotsworth’s efforts until his death.

Eastman wrote articles to promote the 13-month calendar, including “Problems of Calendar Improvement” in Scientific American and “The Importance of Calendar Reform to the Business World” in Nation’s Business. By 1928, Kodak Company used the calendar for its business records and continued to do so until 1989. Eastman chaired the National Committee on Calendar Simplification. Although a meeting about the calendar was held at the League of Nations in 1931, the plan was no longer considered due to Eastman’s death and rising tensions before World War II.

In 1925, Eastman stepped down from daily management of Kodak and officially retired as president. He continued to work with the company as chairman of the board until his death.

Throughout his life, Eastman donated $100 million to various organizations, becoming one of the most generous donors in the United States. His largest contributions supported the University of Rochester and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop their programs and facilities. He preferred to remain anonymous and made donations under the name “Mr. Smith.” In 1918, he funded the creation of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. In 1921, he supported the establishment of a school of medicine and dentistry there. In 1922, he founded the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and hired its first music director, Albert Coates. In 1932, the year of Eastman’s death, $100 million was worth more than $2 billion in 2022.

In 1915, Eastman funded the Eastman Dental Dispensary in Rochester. In 1926, he donated £200,000 to support a dental clinic in London after being approached by George Riddell, 1st Baron Riddell, chairman of the Royal Free Hospital. Lord Riddell and the Royal Free’s honorary treasurer each donated £50,000. On November 20, 1931, the UCL Eastman Dental Institute opened in a ceremony attended by Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health, and the American ambassador to the UK. The clinic became part of the Royal Free Hospital and focused on providing dental care for children in central London. It is now part of University College London. In 1929, Eastman funded the George Eastman Visiting Professorship at Oxford, which is held annually by a distinguished American scholar. He also supported Eastmaninstitutet, a dental clinic for children opened in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1937.

Marion Gleason, a close friend of Eastman, later described his views on African Americans as “typical of his time – paternalistic, but strictly against social fraternization.” Although he donated large sums to the Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, becoming their largest donor during his lifetime, he also supported the unofficial segregation that existed in Rochester. Kodak employed very few Black workers during Eastman’s lifetime, and a 1939 report by the New York State Legislature found that Kodak had only one Black employee. The Eastman Dental Dispensary also refused to hire Black applicants, and the Eastman Theater limited Black patrons to its balcony. Eastman declined several requests to meet with NAACP representatives, including a direct appeal from president Walter White in 1929.

From 1925 until his death, Eastman donated $10,000 annually to the American Eugenics Society (increasing the donation to $15,000 in 1932). This was a common cause among the upper class during a time of concern about immigration and “race mixing.”

Infirmity and suicide

Eastman experienced severe pain during his last two years because of a condition affecting his spine. He had difficulty standing, and his walking became slow and unsteady. Today, doctors might describe this as a type of degenerative condition, such as discs in the spine pressing on nerves due to injury or aging, or a narrowing of the spinal canal caused by hardening of the bones in the spine. His mother also used a wheelchair during her final two years, which suggests she may have had a similar spine condition, though this is not certain. Her medical records only mention her treatment for uterine cancer and successful surgery.

Because of his pain, Eastman developed depression. On March 14, 1932, he ended his life by shooting himself in the heart. He left a note that said: "To my friends, my work is done – Why wait? GE."

Eastman’s funeral took place at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rochester. His ashes were placed on the grounds of the company he founded, now called Eastman Business Park.

He left all of his property to the University of Rochester.

Legacy

George Eastman did not like being famous and worked hard to keep his image private. He was not eager to talk in interviews, and both Eastman and Kodak prevented biographers from seeing all of his records. A complete biography of him was finally published in 1996.

George Eastman is the only person with two stars in the Film category on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One star is on the north side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, and the other is on the west side of the 1700 block of Vine Street. Both stars honor the same accomplishment: Eastman developed bromide paper, which became a standard in the film industry.

The Eastman Quadrangle at the River Campus of the University of Rochester is named after Eastman. The Rochester Institute of Technology has a building dedicated to him because of his support and large donations. MIT placed a plaque of Eastman on a building he funded. Students often rub the nose of Eastman’s image on the plaque for good luck.

Eastman built a mansion at 900 East Avenue in Rochester. He hosted dinner parties and held private music concerts there. After Eastman died, the University of Rochester used the mansion for many purposes. In 1949, the mansion was reopened as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. It is now called the George Eastman Museum and has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

Eastman’s childhood home was saved from being destroyed. It was restored to look like it did during his childhood and is now displayed at the Genesee Country Village and Museum.

Patents

• U.S. patent 226,503 "A way to coat plates using a special method and machine," filed September 1879, granted April 1880.
• U.S. patent 306,470 "Photographic Film," filed May 10, 1884, granted October 14, 1884.
• U.S. patent 306,594 "Photographic Film," filed March 7, 1884, granted October 14, 1884.
• U.S. patent 317,049 (with William H. Walker) "A device to hold photographic film in rolls," filed August 1884, granted May 1885.
• U.S. patent 388,850 "Camera," filed March 1888, granted September 1888.
• Eastman obtained the rights to use, then bought U.S. patent 248,179 "Photographic Apparatus" (a roll film holder), filed June 21, 1881, granted October 11, 1881, from David H. Houston.

Honors and commemorations

• In 1930, he received the American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal.
• In 1934, the George Eastman Monument at Kodak Park (now Eastman Business Park) was unveiled.
• On July 12, 1954, the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent commemorative stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of Eastman's birth. The stamp was first released in Rochester, New York.
• Also in 1954, to honor Eastman's 100th birthday, the University of Rochester built a meridian marker near the center of Eastman Quadrangle on the university campus. The marker was funded by a gift from Eastman's former associate and University alumnus, Charles F. Hutchison.
• In the fall of 2009, a statue of Eastman was built about 60 feet (18 m) north by northeast of the meridian marker on the Eastman Quadrangle of the University of Rochester.
• In 1966, the George Eastman House was designated a National Historic Landmark.
• The auditorium at the Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering at Mississippi State University is named for Eastman, in recognition of his influence on Swalm.
• In 1968, Eastman was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.

Representation in other media

PBS American Experience made a program called "The Wizard of Photography: The Story of George Eastman and How He Transformed Photography." It was first shown on May 22, 2000. Short films about his life have been created and shown at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester.