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One winter, George Eastman planned to take a vacation to Santo Domingo, an island south of the United States. A friend suggested he take a camera along. George had never owned a camera. Very few people owned cameras because they were so expensive, messy, and hard to operate. George spent $100 for a huge, heavy camera that he could hardly carry and a lot of dangerous chemicals. He bought a tent, because after he took his photograph on a heavy piece of glass, he had to immediately crawl into the tent and turn it into a picture with the chemicals. Many times the glass was broken and the photograph ruined. Once on a field trip, Georges chemicals leaked from their bottles and ruined the underwear in his suitcase. George was now totally fascinated with the magic of photography which recorded his family and friends. He took many pictures of the houses he lived in, and of trees in Rochester, and of the Genesee River that ran through the middle of Rochester. But there must be a better and easier way to take these pictures, he decided. He subscribed to the British Journal of Photography and in the very first issue learned about a new dry plate process. The photographer could now dry his piece of glass before using it. He didnt need to carry a tent any more. George began coating or painting these glass plates with chemicals at home. Soon he was selling the plates to other photographers. Next George made machines that could coat the plates with the chemicals. He sold the machines to other photographers. He even took a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to England and sold his machines to photographers. There were no airplanes then. If you wanted to go from Rochester to England you had to take a ship. It took a whole week or seven days to steam across the Atlantic Ocean in a ship. But then the glass plates turned foggy. You couldnt see any picture on them at all. You couldnt see anything but a foggy mess. George got out his chemistry set and tried to solve the problem. He tried almost 500 times but couldnt solve anything. So he went back to England where he bought the chemicals that made his plates foggy. He found that his supplier had changed the chemicals. As soon as he had his old chemicals again, the plates were fine. Georges business of selling cameras with photographic plates and machines to coat them grew and grew. He sold them to many photographers. He had to hire seven employeesfour women and three menjust to help him make the plates and the machines to send to photographers. |
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The stereo camera owned by George Monroe, Eastman's first photography teacher. |
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George Monroe, Eastman's first photography teacher. |
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George Eastman's first photograph--of the Genesee River, 1877. |
| Another early Eastman wet -plate teacher was George Seldon, who invented this gas-burning automobile in 1879. |
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Trees in the Selden's yard were photographed by Eastman. |
| In 1878 Eastman photographed the natural bridge on Mackinac Island, Michigan. |
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Bill of sale for Eastman's first camera and photographic equipment, November 1877. |
