Kodak

• The Eastman Kodak Company, known around the world as Kodak, is an American imaging company that began in the 19th century as an innovator of photography. Incorporated in New Jersey, the corporation was founded in 1888 by George Eastman in Rochester, New York, where its headquarters are located today.

• The history of Kodak starts with the Eastman Dry Plate Company, where owner George Eastman created single-shot sheets of paper covered in photographic emulsion. William Walker, who was also an expert in photography, started working for Eastman in 1883. The two men invented a holder for a roll of the company's photo plates in 1885.

• While this was happening, fellow inventors Hannibal Goodwin and Emile Reynaud were also making amazing advances in photographic technology on their own. The former designed a transparent nitrocellulose film base in 1887, while the latter perforated nitrocellulose film. In 1889, Eastman combined all of these ideas to invent the first mass-produced rolls of transparent photographic film.

• George Eastman, devoted his life to making photography “as convenient as the pencil.” His company has been at the center of most milestones in photography and digital imaging ever since.

• When George Eastman marketed the first commercial transparent roll film in 1889, it enabled Thomas Edison to develop the first motion picture camera. Since then, Kodak has earned nine Oscar® statuettes – more than any other non-studio company – for its technical contributions to the movie industry.

• Kodak first sold materials designed for the printing industry in 1912. During the 1950s and 60s we helped fuel the color revolution in books and magazines. Today, we are part of a new revolution – to bring sustainable, as well as digital, solutions to commercial printers and publishers.

• Given young George Eastman’s experience as a bank clerk, it’s not surprising Kodak created a variety of technologies to preserve, copy and manage documents. One descendant of Kodak’s document technologies is the fastest commercial inkjet print engine in today’s printing industry.

• Kodak’s role in health imaging began less than a year after Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the x-ray. In the decades that followed, Kodak technology helped medical professionals get an inside look at their patients’ health.

• From John Glenn’s first orbit to his historic return to space more than 35 years later… from man’s first walk on the moon, to the Mars Rover’s exploration of that planet’s rough terrain. Our technology has enabled many Kodak Moments from space.