Title: George Eastman
Description: "Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman urged Mr. Eastman in 1925 to publish an autobiography. Returning to Columbia University after a visit in Rochester, the distinguished economist wrote: 'You will pardon me for saying that what interested me more than anything else was your interesting reminiscences. I hope that you will take seriously to heart my advice to publish your autobiography.' In the course of years many similar suggestions were made. Although Mr. Eastman originated the world system of film photography and created an international industry, and, although Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said he wsa 'a literally stupendous factor in the education of the modern world,' he assiduously avoided personal recognition. This was in accordance with a deliberate policy on Mr. Eastman's part to direct attention to the institutions he founded or financed rather than to any one individual. By 1928, however, Mr. Eastman had trasferred the management of his business to his successors and had distributed the bulk of his fortune to educational institutions and employees. Although he had attained 'a somewhat more detached position in respect to human affairs,' he was engaged in advancing the movement to bring about an international fixed calendar and in the founding of a dental dispensary in London and a professorship at Oxford University. At the same time, wide public and scientific interest in color and sound photography directed attention to the limited information available relating to the history of film photography, and the writer suggested that he be permitted to assemble the facts from Mr. Eastman's personal archives. The reading of his correspondence proved again the truth of Emerson's observation that 'there is properly no history; only biography.' Mr. Eastman's records have been preserved for more than sixty-one years, while from 1878 to the present there is an unbroken chain of more than one hundred thousand letters. These reveal significant additions to the general fund of information relating to the modern industrial policy of large-scale production at low costs; to chemical research; to the relationship of music, leisure, and preventive dentistry to the enrichment of community life; and to the rebuilding of two large institutions of higher education -- the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester. In the construction of this book a definite attempt has been made to follow Bacon's rule, that 'it is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man's judgment.'"--Preface.
Subjects: Photography, History, Biography, Inventors
People: George Eastman (1854-1932)