page_title: Kodak
section_title: 1880–98
hierarchical_section_title: Kodak / History / Timeline / 1880–98
context_page_description: The Eastman Kodak Company is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated in New Jersey. Kodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Its main business segments are Print Systems, Enterprise Inkjet Systems, Micro 3D Printing and Packaging, Software and Solutions, and Consumer and Film. It is best known for photographic film products.
  Kodak was founded by George Eastman and Henry A. Strong on September 4, 1888. During most of the 20th century, Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that deserved to be recorded for posterity. Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s, as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in moving to digital photography, despite developing the first self-contained digital camera.
context_section_description: April 1880: George Eastman leased the third floor of a building on State Street in Rochester N.Y. and began the commercial manufacture of dry plates.
  January 1, 1881: Eastman and businessman Henry A. Strong formed a partnership called the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Eastman resigned his position at the Rochester Savings Bank in order to work full-time at the Eastman Dry Plate Company.
  1884: The Eastman-Strong partnership was dissolved and the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company formed with 14 shareowners. The Eastman Dry Plate Company was responsible for the first cameras suitable for non expert use.
  1885: George Eastman bought David Houston's patents for roll film and developed them further. These were the basis for the invention of motion picture film, as used by early filmmakers and Thomas Edison.
  September 4, 1888: Eastman registered the trademark Kodak.
  1888: The first model of the Kodak camera appeared. It took round pictures 6.4 cm (2.5 in) in diameter, was of the fixed focus type, and carried a roll of film enough for 100 exposures. Its invention practically marked the advent of amateur photography, as before that time both apparatus and processes were too burdensome to classify photography as recreation. The roll film used in the first model of the Kodak camera had a paper base but was soon superseded by a film with a cellulose base, a practical transparent flexible film. The first films had to be loaded into the camera and unloaded in the dark room, but the film cartridge system with its protecting strip of opaque paper made it possible to load and unload the camera in ordinary light. The Kodak Developing Machine (1900) and its simplified successor, the Kodak Film Tank, provided the means for daylight development of film, making the dark room unnecessary for any of the operations of amateur photography. The earlier types of the Kodak cameras were of the box form and of fixed focus, and as various sizes were added, devices for focusing the lenses were incorporated.
  1889: The Eastman Company was formed.
  1891: George Eastman began to produce a second line of cameras, the Ordinary range.
  1892: It was renamed the Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. Eastman Kodak Company of New York was organized. He coined the advertising slogan, "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest." The Kodak company thereby attained its name from the first simple roll film cameras produced by Eastman Dry Plate Company, known as the "Kodak" in its product line.
  Early 1890s: The first folding Kodak cameras were introduced. These were equipped with folding bellows that permitted much greater compactness.
  1895: The first pocket Kodak camera, the $5 Pocket Kodak, was introduced. It was of the box form type, slipping easily into an ordinary coat pocket, and producing negatives 1½ x 2 inches.
  1897: The first folding pocket Kodak camera was introduced, and was mentioned in the novel Dracula, published the same year.
  1898: George Eastman purchased the patent for Velox photographic paper from Leo Baekeland for $1,000,000. After this time, Velox paper was then sold by Eastman Kodak.
caption: An advertisement from The Photographic Herald and Amateur Sportsman (November 1889)
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