George Eastman: Founder of Eastman Kodak
Business Owner · Consumer Goods
George Eastman patented a roll film camera that made amateur photography accessible to the public, founded Kodak and gave heavily to Rochester, MIT and Tuskegee.
About George Eastman: Founder of Eastman Kodak
George Eastman (July 12, 1854 to March 14, 1932) was an American innovator and entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and helped bring the photographic use of roll film into the mainstream. After a decade of experiments in photography he patented and sold a roll film camera, making amateur photography accessible to the general public for the first time. As treasurer and later president of Kodak he oversaw the expansion of the company and the film industry. Eastman was a major philanthropist, establishing the Eastman School of Music, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, schools of dentistry and medicine at the University of Rochester and the Eastman Dental Hospital at University College London, and making large contributions to the Rochester Institute of Technology, several buildings at MIT's second campus on the Charles River, and Tuskegee University and Hampton University. With interests in improving health, he funded clinics in London and other European cities to serve low-income residents. In his final two years Eastman was in intense pain from a spinal disorder, and on March 14, 1932 he shot himself in the heart, leaving a note that read, "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?" He is regarded as one of the most influential and well-known residents of Rochester, New York. Sources: English Wikipedia (George Eastman, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Founder, Eastman Kodak Company (1854-1932)
Company Details
Eastman Kodak Company
Photography, Imaging
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