Joseph Di Nunzio

PORTRAIT OF GEORGE EASTMAN

ca. 1914

George Eastman is the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company. He is one of the three inventors we will be looking at today. We'll examine the major discoveries of each and see how they touched the lives of people all over the world.

Mr. Eastman was born in 1854 in Waterville, New York. Young George Eastman was six years old when his father moved the family to Rochester, New York. When he was eight his father died, and his mother was left to raise him and his two sisters. She ran a boarding house to earn money.

Mr. Eastman left school at the age of 13 to work and support his family. He would eventually land a job as a clerk at the Rochester Savings Bank. In his spare time he took up photography. He bought himself a camera and tripod and all the heavy, messy accessories of early photography; and took lessons until he knew the basics of making photographs.