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In January 1880 George began the Eastman Dry Plate Company. Within a year he was selling 4,000 dry plates a month. Although business was good, sometimes the pictures wouldn’t turn out. Sometimes the plates became foggy and the picture wouldn’t develop. If only there was a way to take pictures without plates.
George didn’t sleep much because he worked day and
night. When he did sleep it usually was in the laboratory. In 1883, George made a thin strip of coated paper that he called film. All the photographer had to do was wind the film around a lightweight spool that could fit in any camera. Old film was messy and didn’t always work if the room where they were developing had the littlest bit of light in it and old film was big. The new film George invented wasn’t big, it didn’t make a mess and best of all it could take wonderful pictures. There was only one problem: professional photographers liked dry plates. They took pictures in their studios and did not care about having to carry heavy equipment. Not many people had cameras back then because they were expensive and weighed 50 lbs. and were hard to lug around. If George could invent a lightweight camera that didn’t use a tripod, he could sell it to almost anyone. |
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George Eastman worked day and night on making a machine that
could make dry plates in your home. Dry plates were a little better than
glass plates because glass plates needed a chemical placed on them before you
took the picture, but dry plates didn’t require the chemical on the
plate. In 1880 George invented a machine that could make dry plates.
He knew photographers all around the world would want this dry plate
machine. George then decided to quit his bank job and become a full time
inventor.
