Kodak founder george eastman

"You press the shutter and leave the rest to us!" This is a world-famous advertising language, and it is also the world-famous father of mass photography, George? This famous slogan created by Eastman a century ago is still familiar to the masses. It shows the simple and customer-oriented style of Kodak camera. As an excellent brand with a history of 100 years, Kodak plays an irreplaceable role in our life. As the founder of the company, George? Eastman's achievement lies in that he not only created Kodak, but also laid the company's cultural concept and development direction, and its influence continues to this day. Poverty makes talents, 1854 July 12, George? Hysmans was born in Waterville, new york, USA. He is the youngest of three children. The old house in Hysmans is where George's father was born, and George spent his childhood there. When George was 5 years old, his father sold the nursery and moved his family to Rochester. Here, old Eastman devoted his life to Eastman Business School. However, when George was 7 years old, his father died unfortunately, the school was forced to close, and the family economy was in trouble. Hysmans's mother is a strong woman. She has no education and can only do odd jobs to earn money for others, but she knows the importance of education to children. In order to raise money for her children to go to school, she works day and night with little rest. Hysmans was very painful to see her mother working so hard, but at an early age, she could only keep her mother's kindness in mind. /kloc-At the age of 0/4, Hysmans refused to study any more. He can't stand his mother shouldering the burden of the family alone. He wants to help her share the responsibility. Despite his mother's repeated opposition to his dropping out of school, Hysmans made up his mind. After dropping out of school, Hysmans began to work as a handyman in an insurance company. This job is very hard, and his weekly salary is 3 dollars. A year later, he became an employee of another insurance company. Through his continuous efforts, Eastman was soon responsible for filing and even compiling insurance policies. His salary rose to $5 a week. Although there was only so little money, Hysmans regarded it as a treasure, carefully preserved it and gave it all to his mother. At the same time, he also sells bookshelves and sometimes even sells knitting needles to housewives. Sales promotion is even more devastating, and it often meets with cold eyes, but Hysmans endured it for the sake of his mother and family. In this way, the situation in Hysmans's family began to improve slowly. In order to find a job with higher salary, Hysmans teaches himself accounting at home every night. 1874 After working in the insurance industry for five years, he was employed as a junior clerk of Rochester Savings Bank. His salary has tripled ―― more than $65,438 and ￡ 5 a week. Later, after several years of scrimping and saving, Hysmans finally saved $3,000. As a bank clerk, he has entered the white-collar class. I am fascinated by photography. When I was young, Hysmans liked to travel. It turns out that he has neither money nor time. Now he can finally walk around. 1879, Hysmans plans to go to Santo Domingo for a holiday. When a colleague suggested that he record the trip, Hysmans spent $94 on a set of photographic equipment ―― including a camera and imaging equipment. In this way, he slowly learned the photography technology and became fascinated with photography. But to Hysmans's annoyance, this camera is too heavy: it is as big as a microwave oven and needs a heavy tripod. At the same time, he has to bring a tent so that he can coat the glass with photographic latex, then expose the glass, and then clean the exposed film before it dries. It can be said that the whole set of equipment is "a whole carriage". To make matters worse, this machine is very troublesome to operate. If you don't strictly follow the technical essentials, the result is either light leakage or fuzzy. Besides, it costs 5 dollars to learn how to take pictures with it. At this rate, can taking photos bring pleasure to tourists? Hysmans secretly vowed to improve photographic equipment, simplify shooting procedures, and make photography technology "popular"-using a camera is as convenient as using a pencil, so that everyone can enjoy photography. Hysmans's trip to Santo Domingo didn't take place, but he was totally fascinated by photography and determined to simplify the complicated process. After coming home from the bank every day, he plunged into his own research, and the kitchen at home became his laboratory. He bought various chemical reagents and did various experiments. Eastman is a layman in chemistry, but the so-called practice makes true knowledge. Through various experiments, he uncovered many mysteries. Hysmans's main "tutor" is a British photography magazine he turned over. He saw in the magazine that the photographer was making gelatin emulsion. The glass plate coated with this emulsion can still maintain its photosensitivity after drying and is convenient for exposure. Drawing on the formula introduced in the magazine, Eastman also began to make gelatin emulsion himself. Hysmans works in a bank during the day and does experiments in the kitchen at night. When he is tired, he lies on the floor and sleeps for a while, then wakes up and goes on working. But this endless monotonous life doesn't bother him at all, because his heart is full of happiness brought by creation. In an experiment, Hysmans worked from Wednesday to Saturday night, just when his girlfriend called for a date, and they agreed to meet at the station on 10 the next morning. After hanging up the phone, Hysmans started his own experiment again. As a result, he was so absorbed that it was already late in the morning when he remembered the date. This situation is endless, and my girlfriend can't stand it, so she broke up with him. Although Eastman was in great pain, he went on with his invention. Kodak was born. After constant experiments, Hysmans finally invented a film coated with a layer of dried gelatin. Before this, the photosensitive film was completely wet. After the wet film is coated with emulsion, it must be exposed and developed before it can be dried, while the dry film can be exposed and developed at any time. Subsequently, Eastman invented the milk coating machine and began to produce dry tablets on a large scale. Hysmans's invention began to attract people's attention, and his research began to be sponsored by businessman Si Tong. 188 1 year, 27-year-old Eastman founded Eastman Dry Board Manufacturing Company in Rochester, which was the predecessor of Kodak Company. In the later development process, Eastman's company almost closed down because of problems in a batch of dry boards produced. Finally, Eastman recalled all those bad boards and replaced them with good products. Although Eastman, who compensated those dry boards, suffered heavy losses and almost went bankrupt, his practice won a good reputation for their company. 1886, Eastman developed a roll-type photographic film, that is, "Eastman film", ending the history of using wet, heavy and fragile glass sheets as photographic negatives. But these inventions did not satisfy Hysmans. After all, the real "popularization of photography" has not yet been realized, and the family-oriented and portable home camera is his ultimate goal. Hysmans devoted all his energy to the improvement of the camera and studied how to make the machine smaller, lighter and more convenient. After numerous failures, the new camera developed by Eastman in 1886 was finally born. This is a great invention in human history! At the same time, the most special thing about this camera is that after all the shooting is completed, even the camera is sent to be developed intact. This style and sales method have epoch-making significance in the history of photography development. Photography lovers have since ended the era of loading photographic equipment with carriages. Hysmans thought for a long time and wanted to give his new product a unique name. Finally, he coined a new word-"Kodak". But at the beginning, the situation was not very good. Because it is a new thing, when Kodak cameras were first introduced to the market, almost no one cared. Looking at this grotesque thing, no one believes that it will make a good portrait. In addition, taking pictures has always been a very troublesome thing. Many people are afraid that they have no skills and will not play this new gadget. Faced with this situation, Hysmans was ingenious and came up with a good idea. He put an advertisement in the media: "You just press the button and we'll do the rest." Less than a year later, this slogan became a household name. Subsequently, advertising managers and advertising companies competed to implement his idea, and magazines, newspapers, display cases and billboards were covered with Kodak slogans. 1892, Eastman renamed the company "Eastman? Kodak company. From 65438 to 0895, Kodak Company put a pocket camera with a price of $5 on the market, which caused a sensation all over the world ―― the dream of "popularization" of photography technology was finally realized. In order to build an excellent brand, Eastman attached great importance to scientific research from the beginning. To this end, he spared no expense to recruit many first-class talents and encouraged them to explore and develop new products. Kodak's R&D budget ranks among the top in American business circles, with a daily investment of $6.5438+0.5 million. The headquarters alone employs about 2,000 engineers and scientists to do all kinds of research. By chance, two American musicians were watching a short color film, which inspired the idea of improving color photography. So, they divided the emulsions prepared by German scientists into three layers, and finally found that they were sensitive to the red, green and blue colors of the light source. What they didn't expect was how important this discovery was to Hysmans. founder