July 12th, Friday | The Man who Popularized Photography

The date is July 12th, Friday, and today I’m coming to you from Portland, OR. 

Today is the birthday of George Eastman, American inventor and businessman.

Eastman’s tinkering with film and cameras in his 20s led him to develop his own film and start a business that would dominate the industry. Eastman was the first to use roll film in cameras allowing for multiple pictures to be taken in succession without much ado. Roll film would be the precursor to film for motion pictures. The likes of Thomas Edison used Eastman’s film and Edison was, at least once, a house guest at Eastman’s estate in Rochester, NY.
 

George Eastman’s company Eastman Kodak made film and cameras affordable for the masses and is largely credited with promoting and spreading photography to the nation. Perhaps the most popular Kodak camera was the Brownie series camera.
 

Additionally, George Eastman is credited with the development of the city of Rochester, New York. Rochester became a boomtown as Eastman Kodak began to directly employ more and more skilled and unskilled laborers. He also ended up employing even more people indirectly as a result of his generous giving to numerous institutions within Rochester and beyond. 

Two institutions he was passionate about were dental clinics and dentist-training programs. Eastman watched his mother suffer through terrible tooth pain while he was growing up, and when he made his fortune, he vowed to never see her put through such a thing again. He donated money to kick start multiple dental clinics, including one in London, and funded a school of Dentistry at the University of Rochester.  

In total he donated over $100 million during his lifetime and at his death bequeathed his estate to the University of Rochester. Although his giving was on par with that of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and other peers, George Eastman did not seek publicity for his generosity and made a number of large donations anonymously. Several instances of his generosity have been revealed in recent decades. 
 

And today is the birthday of Henry David Thoreau, American writer. Best known for his essay “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau also wrote poetry and was a staunch promoter of simple living—an early Minimalist, if you will!

“Civil Disobedience” made waves as an anarchist text upon its first publication, perhaps because it was originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government.” Thoreau’s main argument is that government’s nature is to be corrupt and unjust and therefore must be ignored or overthrown via a revolution in order to preserve one’s own individual rights. 

Thoreau was vehemently opposed to slavery and American imperialism which he saw as blatant infringement upon the rights of the individual. 

His writing would influence revolutionary leaders decades later, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther Ming, Jr..

I Am a Parcel of Vain Strivings Tied

Henry David Thoreau

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied 

By a chance bond together, 

Dangling this way and that, their links 

Were made so loose and wide, 

Methinks, 

For milder weather. 

A bunch of violets without their roots, 

And sorrel intermixed, 

Encircled by a wisp of straw 

Once coiled about their shoots, 

The law 

By which I'm fixed. 

A nosegay which Time clutched from out 

Those fair Elysian fields, 

With weeds and broken stems, in haste, 

Doth make the rabble rout 

That waste 

The day he yields. 

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, 

Drinking my juices up, 

With no root in the land 

To keep my branches green, 

But stand 

In a bare cup. 

Some tender buds were left upon my stem 

In mimicry of life, 

But ah! the children will not know, 

Till time has withered them, 

The woe 

With which they're rife. 

But now I see I was not plucked for naught, 

And after in life's vase 

Of glass set while I might survive, 

But by a kind hand brought 

Alive 

To a strange place. 

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, 

And by another year, 

Such as God knows, with freer air, 

More fruits and fairer flowers 

Will bear, 

While I droop here.

Thank you for listening. I’m your host, Virginia Combs, wishing you a good morning, a better day, and a lovely weekend!