What a grand mansion and what a grand life! George Eastman was a true example of the American Dream— from his own hard work and ingenuity, he built a business, acquired wealth, power and luxury and leavened it with a total commitment to philanthropy on an equally grand scale.
Eastman was a teen-aged farm boy when his family moved to Rochester. To take a break from working to support his family, in the 1880’s Eastman planned a trip to Santo Domingo. A friend suggested he take photographs of this remote locale, a precursor of our travel blog. Eastman looked at the equipment necessary -- a veritable truck load of glass plates, tripods, boxes -- and then he decided not to go. But an idea came to mind – how could he make photography a simpler process? By trial and error, with a wonderfully optimistic American outlook, he experimented and found easier ways to combine chemicals, make emulsions, and adapt newer combinations of chemicals to celluloid. He employed local, Rochester talent -- two German opticians, Bausch and Lomb, to create a new camera lens. And in 1904, the Brownie camera was released selling for $1 with marketing directed to women and children to capture life’s intimate moments. As a kid, I owned this same camera, later elevated to the Hawkeye!
It was not quite as easy for George as these simple sentences suggest. There were lots of stumbles along the way, blind alleys, patent law suits, a whale of a depression in 1893--- any of which he could have destroyed his whole effort . But he persisted, treated workers well, worked tirelessly, even in his own laboratory at the mansion and reinvested vast sums into on-going research at Eastman Park. With the dedication of a true 19th -20th century industrialist, he grew and managed a vast and successful enterprise.
CIVIL WAR RARE PHOTO EXHIBIT
The Civil War was the first military conflict to be documented with film. The cameras and accompanying equipment required one or even two horse drawn wagons, fully protected from the elements. The chemicals were mixed on the spot and spread on glass plates to be exposed behind the lens of a large black box. And on and on goes the complexity of taking a picture, which could require as many as a few minutes of film exposure, developing the plates in the truck in a chemical broth, and applying the paper to the plate.
There were no battle scenes—too much movement with very slow film, but only still pictures of how the battlefield appeared after the clash of men and shot. Broken buildings, denuded trees, swollen horses, and most movingly, the broken bodies of the valiant men who “gave the last full measure of devotion.” For the first time, images of war, not made by an artist, but through a lens and onto an unforgiving glass plate, fully reflected the fearsome realities of war. Yet, we fought that war, losing more men--- 650,000--- than we had in any prior or future conflict, or for that matter in all our wars put together. These beautifully exhibited, rare photographs captured the essence of this terrible conflict. (No photos permitted).
