Photography has made history much easier to understand and the invention of the portable camera was a great advancement

Photography has made history much easier to understand and the invention of the portable camera was a great advancement
Originally uploaded by Narayan Hearn

One of the most important events in the history of snapshot photography was Eastman's introduction of the Brownie camera, designed by Frank Brownell, which retailed for just $1.00.

The Brownie used the daylight loading system popularized by Eastman, says Wikipedia. More than 100,000 were sold in 1900, its first year.

The Brownie, which had been intended for the children's market, was quickly embraced by all age groups and became an American classic. Brownie box cameras were still made after the Second World War.

In 1884, Eastman patented a photographic medium that replaced fragile glass plates with a photo-emulsion coated on paper rolls. The invention of roll film greatly sped up the process of recording multiple images.[2]

Eastman then received a patent in 1888 for a camera designed to use roll film. He coined the marketing phrase, "You press the button, we do the rest."

On September 4, 1888 Eastman registered the trademark Kodak. The letter "K" had been a favorite of Eastman's. He said, "[I]t seems a strong, incisive sort of letter".[5] Eastman and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He used three principal concepts to create the name: it must be short, it could not be mispronounced, and it could not resemble anything else or be associated with anything other than itself.[6]


Philanthropy was a notable part of Eastman's life: He donated to the University of Rochester, establishing the Eastman School of Music and School of Dentistry; to Tuskegee Institute; and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In all, he gave away some $100 million.