Posted on 10/03/2011 9:26:07 AM PDT by shortstop
My work is done.
Those words were some of the last penned by George Eastman. He included them in his suicide note.
They mark an ignoble end to a noble life, the leave taking of a truly great man.
The same words could now be said for the company he left behind.
My work is done.
For all intents and purposes, the Eastman Kodak Company is through. It has been mismanaged financially, technologically and competitively. For 20 years, its leaders have foolishly spent down the patrimony of a century’s prosperity. One of America’s bedrock brands is about to disappear, the Kodak moment has passed.
It is as wrong as suicide, and, like suicide, is the result of horrifically poor decisions, a fatal wound of self-infliction.
But George Eastman is not how he died, and the Eastman Kodak Company is not how it is being killed. Though the ends be needless and premature, they must not be allowed to overshadow the greatness that came before.
History testifies of the greatness of George Eastman.
It must also bear witness of the greatness of Kodak.
Few companies have done so much good for so many people, or defined and lifted so profoundly the spirit of a nation and perhaps the world. It is impossible to understand the 20th Century without recognizing the role of the Eastman Kodak Company.
Kodak served mankind through entertainment, science, national defense and the stockpiling of family memories.
Kodak took us to the top of Mount Suribachi and to the Sea of Tranquility. It introduced us to the merry old Land of Oz and to stars from Charlie Chaplin to John Wayne, and Elizabeth Taylor to Tom Hanks.
It showed us the shot that killed President Kennedy, and his brother bleeding out on a kitchen floor, and a fallen Martin Luther King Jr. on the hard balcony of a Memphis motel.
When that sailor kissed the nurse, and when the spy planes saw missiles in Cuba, Kodak was the eyes of a nation. From the deck of the Missouri to the grandeur of Monument Valley, Kodak took us there. Virtually every significant image of the 20th Century is a gift to posterity from the Eastman Kodak Company.
In an era of easy digital photography, when we can take a picture of anything at any time, we cannot imagine what life was like before George Eastman brought photography to people. Yes, there were photographers, and for relatively large sums of money they would take stilted pictures in studios and formal settings.
But most people couldn’t afford photographs, and so all they had to remember distant loved ones, or earlier times of their lives, was memory. Children could not know what their parents had looked like as young people, grandparents far away might never learn what their grandchildren looked like.
Eastman Kodak allowed memory to move from the uncertainty of recollection, to the permanence of a photograph.
But it wasn’t just people whose features were savable; it was events, the sacred and precious times that families cherish. The Kodak moment, was humanity’s moment. It was that place in time where there is joy, where life has its ultimate purpose.
From the earliest round Brownie pictures, to the squares of 126 and the rectangles of 35mm, Kodak let the fleeting moments of birthdays and weddings, picnics and parties, be preserved and saved. It allowed for the creation of the most egalitarian art form. Lovers could take one another’s pictures, children were photographed walking out the door on the first day of school, the person releasing the shutter decided what was worth recording, and hundreds of millions of such decisions were made.
And for centuries to come, those long dead will smile and dance and communicate to their unborn progeny. Family history will be not only names on paper, but smiles on faces.
Thanks to Kodak.
The same Kodak that served is in space and on countless battlefields. This company went to war for the United States and played an important part in surveillance and reconnaissance. It also went to the moon and everywhere in between.
All while generating a cash flow that employed countless thousands of salt-of-the-earth people, and which allowed the company’s founder to engage in some of the most generous philanthropy in America’s history. Not just in Kodak’s home city of Rochester, New York, but in Tuskegee and London, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He bankrolled two historically black colleges, fixed the teeth of Europe’s poor, and quietly did good wherever he could.
And Kodak made that possible.
While doing good, Kodak did very well.
And all the Kodakers over all the years are essential parts of that monumental legacy. They prospered a great company, but they – with that company – blessed the world.
That is what we should remember about the Eastman Kodak Company.
Like its founder, we should remember how it lived, not how it died.
My work is done.
Perhaps that is true of Kodak.
If it is, we should be grateful that such a company ever existed. We should rejoice in and show respect for that existence.
History will forget the small men who have scuttled this company.
But history will never forget Kodak.
Every once in a while I see devices that transfers slides to your computer in catalogs like Sharper Image. As far as I know, they are full size when they are transferred. I know our local camera shop gets an arm and a leg to do it so I just break out the old Kodak carousel and screen.
I used to work in the industry. I mixed chemistry and monitored the Kodachrome and print processors.
I remember the days when we were having trouble keeping the Kodak high speed printers in balance. The kodak rep. said we had to use Kodak paper. The plant manager got him to show up anyway, but parked 3 skids of Fuji paper outside the printer room doors so the rep. had to walk around them.
At Raychem (another company that is no more) we called them HMBAs. The management (which included as president a guy whose wife was one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss bucks and who went to Harvard) was enamored with Harvard MBA’s. They were over paid and most of them could not figure out the way to the men’s room. Now Raychem is no more, having been swallowed up by Kosloski and Company (Tyco). The other hallmark of Raychem was the management always having their self-interest above that of the company.
Hasselblad camera, Kodak film.
All around us
Everywhere we look
Every moment that we live
Can fill a picture book
Light and shadows
Smiles and sentimental tears
They’re a precious treasure
We can cherish through the years
Making memories, making memories
Taking pictures is making memories
Catching little pieces of time
Making them yours, making them mine
Great vacations and celebrations
Can fade away in a year
Cause when we’re making memories
Happy days are always here
Happy days are always here
My God... small world. I worked there as a software engineer for many years. I probably know who you are referring to. Are her initials NP by any chance? Or possibly AF? They had the worst management of any company, not pnly on Earth, but in the entire galaxy..
I worked at Kodak for 5 years.
As the digital imaging revolution arrived, Kodak lost sight of their customer. They thought retail stores were the customers, and satisfied their demands ... but the button pushing picture taking public were the real customers, and when (despite plenty of warning) the general public went digital en mass, film providers were far behind the curve.
Kodak had great technology, but chose to outsource digital products instead of make the massive painful transition to leverage that technology for a changing market. Being a photographic chemical company, they had the choice of sticking to photographic or chemical but not both. They chose wrong.
This a company which, AFAIK into the ‘90s, had an indoor rifle range.
Let’s not forget the indoor pool they built on the 6th floor at Kodak Park. The never filled the pool because nobody did the math until after it was built, somebody ran the numbers and reported that the building would collapse if they filled it with water. They used it for years as a developing tank for large prints. I kid you not.. this actually happened.
Houston farmed in Dakota Territory and the name Kodak came from Dakota. Of course, once the invention became famous and Eastman became involved in lawsuit infringement patents as to just which patent rights he had purchased, he tried to claim the name of his now famous company was inspired by the sound of a camera clicking.
I used to do field service for a formerly great instrument and computer company at all the EK facilities in the Rochester area. I was at one of the guarded entrances to the park when Ronald Reagan visited. He stood with the guards for photos. A week later when I returned one of the guards showed me the photo. It was printed on Fuji paper. We both had a good laugh over that one.
Kodak should just be thankful that they didn’t reach their zenith during the Obama/democrat occupation of our government - they’d have been taken over by the government “for the common good”, no doubt...
” I have not seen a roll of Verichrome Pan 127 roll film on the shelf in many years.”
Ha! Nobody has. I still have an old 127 box camera. I used my share of Verichrome Pan 120, though. It made a great b&w proofing film for Ektacolor. I’ll miss Kodak. My whole Vietnam tour was recorded with many rolls Tri-X and a Voightlander Vito.
Another bone-headed idea from Kodak - they created their own film sizes. I have several old medium format cameras that take 120 size film that I can still use. (The rest of the World created cameras for this film) I also have several old Kodak bellows and box cameras that look really cool and probably would still work if film was available.
I also had a Kodak Instamatic as a kid. Worst quality pictures ever. That camera made me and probably a whole generation move to 35MM (another non-Kodak size film) using Japanese and German cameras.
BTW, I also have a Voightlander Vitessa which I have actually used. Good lens, takes very good pictures. Unfortunately, have now gone completely over to the Dark Side (digital). Film was fun.
My dad is fond of saying that all of the places he consulted for are gone now, either bankrupt, or sold and broken up. The list included (what was) the largest Textile manufacturer in the world, (what was) the largest insurer in the world, and (what was) the largest trucking company in the world.
His attitude? You should work to live, not the other way 'round. Work is a means to an end, that's all, and is rarely a permanent fixture.
IMHO, he's right. IF I dedicated myself to my work, sacrificing my family and everything that's *really* important.... And IF that dedication allows me to rise to the top of the heap in my organization.... And IF my company is still around 50 years from now....
...I might have a conference room named after me at the company's HQ. And, if I was lucky, someone might read my name off a dusty plaque and say "Hmmmmph. Wonder who this "WBill" person was?". But only if they were killing time in between meetings.
Business is transient, by definition. Faith, Family, Community... IMHO, these are the things that are really important.
/rant off. Stepping down from my soapbox.
My sister bought one of those "Sharper Image" scanners - totally frustrating to use. Painfully slow, too.
If you have a lot of slides to scan, one of the flatbed scanners with slide insert/holder is what you need. The HP models generally come with pretty good software for resizing the images and doing color touch-up work (though Kodachrome rarely needs much help in that regard).
That actually made me tear up a bit.
Yep, me too.
I remember as a child (I’m dating myself here)my parents would say to each other - Did you bring the Kodak? Don’t forget the Kodak. It was never the camera - we only knew Kodak.
I watched MBA’s destroy Hughes Aircraft Company.
“...Voightlander Vitessa...Good lens, takes very good pictures.”
Carl Zeiss lenses. Great quality.
They make FILM?
Amen brother!
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