Tuesday Tidbits: KODAK

It's funny how we can get something in our heads we think is true but isn't.

For as long as I can remember, I always thought that the Kodak Eastman company was a merger or two different men coming together to form this company. Nope.

In 1887, George Eastman created a box camera that was so easy to use that anyone could take their own pictures. He named this first camera KODAK. He wanted something made up, that you wouldn't find in the dictionary, so that the name wouldn't be associated with anything else but his camera.




The first KODAK camera was "so simple anyone could use it." It had a string to pull to cock the shutter, a button to release the shutter and snap the picture, and key winder to advance the film inside one frame. The camera came with a roll of paper film to take 100 pictures. When the film was all used, the whole camera was sent to the KODAK factory where the film was developed, pictures printed, the camera reloaded with film to be sent back with the pictures. The advertising that went with the camera was "You press the button, we do the rest."



Award-winning novelist MARY DAVIS has over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She is a member of ACFW and active in two critique groups. Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty years and two cats. She has three adult children and on grandchild.