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23-year-old George Eastman buys a photography outfit for a planned Caribbean vacation. It includes a cumbersome camera, tripod, chemicals darkroom tent and a
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Eastman invents a coating method that lets him mass-produce photographic dry plates, which are a precursor to film. Eastman's dry plate coating machine receives a patent in London, with it receiving a U.S. patent a year later.
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A bookkeeper at Rochester Savings Bank, George Eastman rents a third-floor loft to make dry plates commercially. Henry A. Strong (pictured), a buggy-whip manufacturer, invests money and together in 1881 they form Eastman Dry Plate Co.
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Eastman Dry Plate moves to where Kodak's 19-story world headquarters at 343 State St. sits today. The famous Kodak slogan, "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest" appears on Mr. Eastman's original factory building on State Street, trumpeting the simplification of using his Kodak camera. Photo courtesy George Eastman House
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The company reorganizes as Eastman Dry Plate and Film Co. And a year later it launches film in rolls and a roll holder adaptable to plate cameras. Strong is president of the company, with Eastman as general manager.
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The company opens a London sales office to tap into the booming European photography market. Eastman American Film - the first transparent film negative as we know it today - is introduced.
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The "Kodak" name is trademarked. George Eastman later says in interviews that he experimented with a variety of made-up words but liked the "incisive" sound of the letter K. The first Eastman Kodak camera is released. It cost $25 - $600 in today's dollars - and was pre-loaded with film. The camera and film are sent to Rochester for developing, with the customer getting back prints and the camera reloaded with film at a cost of $10. Photo shows Eastman in 1888 (courtesy George Eastman House)
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In what was then outside city limits, the company starts what will be its Kodak Park industrial park with four buildings. This photo depicts Frederick Douglass (center) with President Benjamin Harrison (to his right), Mayor Edgerton (left) and other dignitaries at the official dedication of Eastman Kodak Park in 1892. George Eastman was reportedly out of town on this day. (Photo courtesy George Eastman House)
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Eastman Dry Plate puts out a camera that could be loaded in daylight, without use of a darkroom. The company also moves film and photographic paper manufacturing to Kodak Park and opens its first international manufacturing site, in the London suburb of Harrow.
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The company is reorganized again as Eastman Kodak Co. of New York. A separate Eastman Kodak Co. of New Jersey is created in 1901. And Kodak consists of both companies until 1936, when the New York company is dissolved and its assets transferred to the New Jersey one. This 1891 photo shows a single smokestack puffing smoke from a coal furnace that provided power for Kodak's four-building production complex at Lake Avenue and Ridge Road.
Photo courtesy George Eastman House -
Kodak turns out its 100,000th camera. It also is churning out photographic film and paper at the rate of 400 miles a month. It begins supplying film for the budding x-ray and motion picture industries.
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Kodak releases its $1 Brownie camera, making photography available to the masses. (Photo courtesy George Eastman House)
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Kodak christens its Hawkeye lens plant on St. Paul Street.
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The company's worldwide employment exceeds 5,000. It pays the first of what becomes an annual tradition of wage dividend bonuses to employees.
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Kodak builds a 16-story office building at 343 State St. The other three stories were added in 1930. It replaced the original Kodak factory building, pictured here.
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On Henry Strong's death, Eastman moves to company president. He gives a third of his Kodak stock holdings - $125 million worth in today's dollars - to employees.
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Kodak buys from the U.S. government a hardwood distillation plant in Tennessee for making wood alcohol - a key chemical in film manufacture - and forms Tennessee Eastman Corp. Also in 1920, the Eastman Savings and Loan Association is founded.
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Kodak is turning out 147,000 miles of motion picture film a year.
One twelveth of all silver mined in the United States goes to make Kodak motion picture film. Only the U.S. Mint is a bigger consumer of silver. -
Kodak made amateur motion picture filming practical with its introduction of 16mm film on a nonflammable base and 16mm movie cameras and projectors. The company also begins establishing a global network of film processing labs.
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71-year-old George Eastman hands over presidency of the company to William Stuber (pictured), becomes chairman and focuses on philanthropy. He donates $30 million - $375 million in today's dollars - to a variety of educational institutions, including University of Rochester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the historically black universities of Hampton and Tuskegee.
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Kodak starts providing life insurance, disability benefits and retirement annuity plans for employees.
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Kodak introduces sound movie film for the "talkies." Worldwide company employment passes 20,000.
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Stricken with a crippling and debilitating disease,Eastman took his own life at age 77, on March 14, 1932, in his East Avenue mansion. His suicide note reads "My work is done - why wait?" Photo courtesy George Eastman House
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Kodak and Western Electric jointly commercialize high-speed industrial photography with a high-speed camera synchronized to an electric timer.
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Frank Lovejoy becomes president. Kodak and General Mills start joint research into molecular distillation. By 1938, their Distillation Products Inc. is turning out vitamin concentrates. And in 1948, Kodak buys out General Mills' interest in the company. In the depths of the Great Depression, Kodak does not pay its annual wage dividend bonus to workers. The bonus is reinstated in 1935.
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The iconic Kodachrome color film line is launched.
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Kodak introduces its first 16mm sound-on-film projector.
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Thomas Hargrave, formerly head of Kodak's legal department, becomes president.
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Kodacolor Film for prints, the world's first true color negative film, is announced.
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Kodak introduces Ektachrome Transparency Sheet Kits, its first color film which could be processed by amateur photographers with chemical kits. The company's worldwide employment passes 60,000.
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George Eastman's home on East Avenue opens as the International Museum of Photography and Film at George Eastman House. Photo shows the museum in 1999.
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Kodak wins its first Academy Award, for development of triacetate safety-base movie film.
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Albert K. Chapman becomes president.
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Under a court consent decree, Kodak begins selling color film without the cost of processing included in the price. The company begins providing services and products to independent photofinishers
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The Kodak Zoom 8 movie camera is the first Kodak camera with a zoom lens.
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William S. Vaughn becomes CEO.
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Kodak sales surpass $1 billion. Worldwide employment hits 75,000.
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The introduction of Kodak Instamatic cameras and cartridge loading films makes loading a roll of film easy for amateurs. The company sells 50 million Instamatic cameras in their fist seven years.
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Sales surpass $2 billion, with worldwide employment growing to 100,000.
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The relocation of Kodak's Camera Works operations to its Elmgrove facility in Gates begins. Louis K. Eilers named president.
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Kodak introduces Super 8 film in cartridges and a family of Instamatic movie cameras.
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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon, carrying with them a specially made Kodak camera and film. Construction begins on Kodak Colorado - a film and paper manufacturing site in Windsor, Colo. Louis K. Eilers becomes CEO.
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The company dedicates a film manufacturing plant in Guadalajara, Mexico.
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The company introduces a pocket-sized Instamatic camera line. Walter A. Fallon becomes CEO. Worldwide company sales pass $3 billion.
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Kodak launches its Ektaprint photocopiers.
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Kodak's EK4 and EK6 instant cameras hit the market. Polaroid sues for patent violations.
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Company researchers Steve Sasson and Gareth Lloyd receive a patent for their 1975 invention of the digital camera, which weighed eight pounds and was larger than a shoebox. Kodak launches its Colorburst 100 instant camera.
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30,000 work in the 195 buildings at Kodak Park, making film, paper and chemicals. Kodak also is turning out cameras and projectors at its Elmgrove plant in Gates and optics and Ektaprint photocopiers at its Hawkeye plant. Worldwide, the company empoys 128,000 - 40 percent of whom are in Rochester. The company enters the medical diagostics market with its Ektachem blood test analyzers. Company reports revenues of $9.7 billion and profits of $1.12 billion for the year.
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Kodak launches "disc photography" using a rotating disc of film. The Kodak Pavillion "Imagination" opens at Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. Kodak ended its sponsorship of the pavillion in 2010.
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Kodak begins its cost-cutting years, eliminating 7,000 jobs worldwide. Colby H. Chandler becomes CEO.
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Kodak launches its own line of floppy discs for personal computers and videotape cassettes.
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A federal court rules that Kodak's instant photography technology violates Polaroid patents. In 1991, Kodak paid Polaroid $925 million in damages.
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Kodak announces plans to cut its worldwide workforce of 130,000 by 10 percent. That includes roughly 5,000 employees locally. Company scientists design and build the world's first megapixel sensor. Kodak enters the consumer battery market with Ultralife Premium Battery Cells and Ultraife Alkaline Batteries. And it branches out into healthcare with creation of its Eastman Pharmaceuticals Division. Two years later it bought pharmaceutical company Sterling Drug Inc.
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Kodak enters the "filmless" photography market with products for electronically recording, transmitting and printing images - the precursor to today's digital photography. Extensive chemical spills are found in the soil at Kodak Park.
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Kodak announces its Photo CD system that puts images on a photo CD for viewing on a television screen or computer monitor. Kay Whitmore becomes CEO.
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Kodak launches is Professional Digital Camera System, which used a Nikon F-3 camera and Kodak sensor to take electronic photos.
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The 73-year-old Eastman Chemical Co. is spun off. It is headquartered in Tennessee. George M.C. Fisher becomes CEO.
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Kodak sells off its non-imaging-related health businesses.
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Kodak sells its office copier division to Heidelberg.
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Daniel Carp becomes CEO.
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Kodak unveils a five-pronged business strategy that focuses on digital technology and pushes into commercial businesses. The five are commercial printing, display and components, health imaging, digital and film imaging systems, and commercial imaging.
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Kodak announces it will cut 12,000 to 15,000 jobs worldwide and shed a third of its real estate worldwide. It purchases digital printing busines Scitex Ltd. of Israel, renaming it,Kodak Versamark Inc., and absorbs Heidelberg Digital and NexPress commerical printing businesses, as part of an acceleratiing push into commerical printing. Kodak is delisted from the Dow Jones industrial average.
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Antonio M. Perez named CEO
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Kodak launches its Easyshare All-in-One desktop inkjet printer line. It sells its health imaging business to Onex Corp. That business is headquartered in Rochester and operates as Carestream Health Inc.
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Kodak unveils its Stream inkjet commercial printing technology. After the summer games in Beijing, Kodak ends its decades-old sponsorship of the Olympics.
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Kodak ends its Kodachrome line, suspends its 25-cent semiannual dividend and does not pay an annual wage dividend bonus to workers, though it reinstates that in 2010.
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Kodak lays out a strategy that has it turning profitable in 2012 due to growth of four specific business lines - commercial and consumer inkjet printing, packaging printing and workflow software. The company also says it will pull back on its digital camera sales, looking only at profitable markets instead of worldwide distribution. Kodak filed for bankruptcy on January 19, 2011.
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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper approved the company’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan, saying "(Kodak’s) decline and bankruptcy is a tragedy of American economic life.” Kodak CEO Antonio Perez said: "“There are additional transactional steps ahead as we complete our Chapter 11 restructuring, but with the court’s decision today, our emergence is now imminent.”
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Jeffrey J. Clarke was named CEO, replacing Antonio Perez. Clarke, 52, was managing partner of Augusta Columbia Capital, a New York investment firm specializing in technology companies. Prior to that, he was chairman of Travelport Inc., a travel technology firm. He was born in Ithaca and graduated from SUNY Geneseo.
