465
(KRL) to lend its resources to the U. S. armed services.
This resulted in advances in experimental aerial pho-
tography, camoufl age (the most effective way to paint
a surface vessel to avoid detection by submarines),
and colloidal fuels. Most important, Eastman set up a
Synthetic Organic Chemicals Department to counteract
the utter dependency on German chemicals such as sen-
sitizing dyes and photographic developing agents. By
1921, this department was producing more than 1000
specialty chemicals.
The fi rst major post-war product from the KRL was
amateur motion picture fi lm in 1923. Eastman continued
pressing Mees to market a color technology (done in
1928, prematurely). In 1920, Eastman had interviewed
the young Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky—
who would eventually produce the groundbreaking
Kodachrome fi lm in 1935 under Mees’s aegis, three
years after Eastman’s death.
Eastman’s role as philanthropist is impressive too.
His interest in Rochester projects was partly to make
the city a “better place for Kodak people to live and
raise a family.” His rationale for founding the East-
man School of Music—“What you do in your working
hours determines what you have; what you do in your
leisure hours determines what you are”—could refer to
his stimulus for other charitable gifts. Pragmatism and
personal appeal were the foundation of his philanthropic
philosophy. Trained technicians were important to his
business so he became an early fund-raiser for what is
today the Rochester Institute of Technology. His reliance
on “the good stock” coming to Kodak from the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology led him to build a new
campus for MIT as an anonymous donor merely known
as “Mr. Smith.” His concern about preventive dentistry
for children had a personal—he and his mother had
poor teeth and gums—as well as a community service
component. His gift of the Rochester Dental Dispensary
led to an Eastman Dental Clinic in fi ve European cities:
London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, and Stockholm.
In 1920, when Rockefeller philanthropic interests,
led by Abraham Flexner, proposed that he establish a
medical school—modeled after Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity—at the University of Rochester, he readily agreed to
expand his health care interests. He and Henry Strong’s
family founded Strong Memorial Hospital and the
school/hospital complex continues as the region’s largest
and most complete medical center and after the Eastman
Kodak Company, the area’s premier employer.
Eastman owned the only old master art collection in
Rochester, bequeathed to the Memorial Art Gallery of
the University of Rochester. The university’s Eastman
School of Music is a conservatory for training perform-
ers and teachers and its Eastman Theatre, originally a
silent fi lm theater, continues as home to the Eastman-founded Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. The musi-
cal complex had as its goal the training of listeners and
the music school often leads the list when “best” music
schools in the country are named.
The son of abolitionists, Eastman became his gener-
ation’s greatest contributor to African American educa-
tion. His early interest in technical education widened
to include liberal arts, education for minorities, music
education and women’s education—particularly at the
University of Rochester.
Despite a myriad of charitable gifts, Eastman con-
sidered his major philanthropic contribution to be the
company he founded that provided so much work for
so many people.
Elizabeth Brayer
See also: X-ray photography; Roll Film; Camera
Design: 6 Kodak, (1888–1900); Kodak; Dry Plate
Negatives: Gelatine; and Negatives: Non-Gelatine,
Including Dry Collodion.Further Reading
Elizabeth Brayer, George Eastman: A Biography, Baltimore and
London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. (Currently out
of print but available in many libraries and second-hand.)
Carl W. Ackerman, George Eastman, Boston, and New York:
Houghton Miffl in, 1930. The fi rst and for many years, the
only full-length biography of Eastman. Commissioned and
edited by Eastman and long out of print, it has recently been
reissued. Weak on Eastman’s personal side.
Booklets and magazine articles:
“Eastman House, January 20, 1990, restoration report by Wil-
liam Seale, ‘GE’ a biographical essay by Elizabeth Brayer,
privately printed for friends, guests and patrons. Available
second hand.
“The Eastman House Gardens, June 16th, 1990,” two historical
commentaries by Elizabeth Brayer, Gerald Allan Doell and
M. Christine Doell, privately printed for friends, guests and
patrons. Available second hand and in some libraries.
“The Prodigious Life of George Eastman,” by Roger Butterfi eld.
Life (26 April 1954): 154–168. The best short biography.
“Journey into Imagination: The Kodak Story.” Rochester, NY:
Eastman Kodak Company, 1988. Booklet prepared by the
company about the man, the company, fi lm, cameras, and new
technologies. Accurate outline of Eastman’s career.
“George Eastman said ‘Kodak’...,” by Richard Conniff. Smith-
sonian 19 no. 3 (June 1988): 106–120. A witty account of the
snapshot fever which began with the introduction of Kodak
camera in 1888.
George Eastman, by Oscar N. Solbert. Rochester, NY: The George
Eastman House, 1953. Booklet prepared by the then-director
of the GeorgeEastman House of Photography (now George
Eastman House: International Museum of Photography and
Film).
“You Press the Button, We Do the Rest,” by Bernard Weisberger.
American Heritage 23 no. 6 (October 1972): 82–91.
Chapters in books:
Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and
Volunteering, edited by Roberts T. Grimm Jr., Westport, CT/
London, Greenwood Press, 2002, 87–91.EASTMAN, GEORGE
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