an everyday affair: selling the kodak image to america 1888-1989

CENTER FOR DOCUMENTARY STUDIES AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

April 10–September 13, 2014 • Porch & University Galleries

AN EVERYDAY AFFAIRSelling the Kodak Image to America, 1888–1989

• GALLERY GUIDE •

An EvErydAy AffAirSelling the Kodak Image to America, 1888-1989

CEntEr for doCumEntAry StudiES At dukE univErSity

April 10–September 13, 2014 • Porch & university Galleries

Introduction • 3

Kodak as You Go • 10

Romance Lives on in Snapshots • 14

At Home with Kodak • 18

You Press the Button, We Do the Rest • 22

Epilogue • 26

• GALLERY GUIDE •


CEntER foR DoCUmEntARY StUDIES At DUKE UnIvERSItY

April 10–September 13, 2014 • Porch & University Galleries

introduCtion

“The idea gradually dawned on me that what we were doing was

not merely making dry plates, but that we were starting out to make

photography an everyday affair.”

–George Eastman, founder, Eastman kodak Company

Between 1888 and 1975, the Eastman Kodak Company invented

the first handheld camera, roll film, 35mm negative and slide

films, the first line of color film for amateurs, and the first digital

camera—essentially making photography as we’ve experienced

it for the past hundred years possible. Kodak transformed the

once costly and cumbersome pursuit of image making into an

inexpensive and spontaneous affair and in the process made it

possible for almost anyone to become a photographer.

Alongside their technical advances, Eastman Kodak broke new

ground in commercial marketing. By pioneering the use of print

advertisements featuring persuasive slogans and romanticized

illustrations, Kodak convinced consumers that photographing

their daily lives was both a joyful pastime and a familial duty, and

they made it as easy as pressing a button.

Kodak’s promotional pleas, along with their amateur-friendly

cameras, ushered in an era of documentary compulsion that continues

to thrive today.

An Everyday Affair surveys 101 years of advertisements in five

thematic groupings to examine the ideology of simplicity and

pleasure that Kodak sold to America with its products. However,

while these innovative production and marketing strategies led

to the worldwide ubiquity of photography, they also may have

contributed to Kodak’s eventual bankruptcy in 2011. While Kodak

shared in shaping our collective expectation that photography

should be easy and enjoyable, their promotional strategies

ultimately backfired when other companies began to simplify and

glorify digital technology more effectively.

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • IntRoDUCtIon

Take a Kodak with you. Kodak as you go. Keep a Kodak story

of the children. Make somebody happy with a Kodak. You can

keep happiness with snapshots. Treasured moments deserve Kodak

film. You press the button, we do the rest.

An Everyday Affair features reproductions of Eastman Kodak advertisements from the Wayne P. Ellis Collection of Kodakiana and the J. Walter Thompson Company Domestic Advertisements Collection, held in the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein

Library, as well as a selection of vintage Kodak cameras.

4

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • IntRoDUCtIon

SPECiAL tHAnkS

this exhibition would not have been possible without the support of:

Courtney Reid-Eaton

Bonnie Campbell, Harlan Campbell, Hannah Colton, Alexa

Dilworth, Wesley Hogan, tory Jeffay, Lynn mcKnight,

Liz Phillips, Chris Sims, & tom Rankin at

the Center for Documentary Studies

&

Jacqueline Reid Wachholz & Joshua Rowley at the Hartman

Center for Sales, Advertising & marketing History at

Duke University’s David m. Rubenstein Library

5

note on tHe CoLLeCtionS

In selecting the advertisements for An Everyday Affair, I searched eighty boxes of archival material from the Wayne P. Ellis Collection of Kodakiana and the J. Walter thompson Company Domestic Advertisements Collection, both held in the Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & marketing History at Duke University’s David m. Rubenstein Library. these two collections consist of thousands of advertisements and other related ephemera and are of completely different origins.

Wayne P. Ellis was a professional chemist and a voracious collector who concentrated on advertisements for photographic materials from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially those of the Eastman Kodak Company. His Collection of Kodakiana was acquired by the Rubenstein Library in 1993.

the J. Walter thompson Company Domestic Advertisements Collection consists of print advertisements created by the U.S. offices of the J. Walter thompson Company (JWt) between 1875 and 2001. the collection was initially transferred to the Rubenstein Library from JWt in 1987, with new materials added each year since then. the Eastman Kodak Company consulted with the J. Walter thompson Company as early as 1888, though it was only an official client of JWt between 1931 and 1997. the collection at Duke spans this sixty-six-year relationship, however, the J. Walter thompson Company was just one of at least fifty advertising agencies that Eastman Kodak Company engaged throughout its history.

the Collection of Kodakiana is the work of one man who searched hundreds of publications over a nearly ninety-eight-year history for any reference to Kodak, while the JWt Collection consists of the corporate files of a single advertising agency that handled some of Kodak’s most iconic campaigns. In combination, these two collections represent a large swath of Eastman Kodak’s marketing materials. While the sixty reproductions on display here are but a small selection of these two distinct collections, I believe the exhibition provides insight into some of the most prominent advertising tendencies employed by the Eastman Kodak Company between 1888 and 1989.

—Lisa mcCarty, Curator

2013–14 Exhibitions Intern, Center for Documentary Studies

1920

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • IntRoDUCtIon 7

1888


tHE oriGinAL kodAk

In 1881, George Eastman and partner Henry A. Strong formed

a partnership known as the Eastman Dry Plate Company. the

word “Kodak” was not invented until 1888, when Eastman

himself used it as the name for the first camera the company

released. the first Kodak camera cost $25 and came with 100

exposures on a roll of preloaded film. After exposure, the

user could send the whole camera back to Kodak to have the

film developed and prints made. Kodak would then load a new

roll of film and send the camera back to the consumer. Prior

to the Kodak, cameras used emulsion-coated plates that had to

be exposed and developed individually, a process that required

time, knowledge of chemistry and optics, as well as expensive

materials for developing and printing the images.

this reproduction from 1888 is the earliest Kodak ad in the

Wayne P. Ellis Collection of Kodakiana. the ad both introduces

this novel and simplified method for making images and suggests

situations in which to use the Kodak that would not have been

possible with the unwieldy tripod-bound camera and plate

technology of the past.


With the invention of the Kodak camera, photography suddenly

became considerably less expensive and also truly portable for

the first time. the handheld Kodak could easily fit in a suitcase or

briefcase or be slung across a shoulder as pictured in many of the

ads seen here. And with a hundred preloaded exposures that did not

require immediate development, images could be made anywhere

and at the photographer’s leisure. Despite this monumental

advance, Eastman realized he would have to combat over fifty

years of public perception that photography was not for everyone.

As exemplified in the first Kodak advertisement from 1888, one

of Eastman’s initial approaches to advertising his product was to

convince the public of the connection between photography and

leisure—that you could indeed “Kodak as you go.”

now that it is commonplace to have a camera in your pocket, it

is hard to believe consumers needed to be persuaded that this

was a good idea. But it was in fact extensive Kodak advertising

that popularized and encouraged the practice. Ads featuring

illustrations, and later photographs, of well-dressed ladies

brandishing their cameras on trains, in cars, at the beach, or at the

World’s fair were a part of the first wave of ads demonstrating

the ease and mobility of Kodak cameras. Starting in the 1950s,

families on the go, whether packing up a station wagon or

standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, were emphasized more

than independent travelers. And in 1989, the concept of “Kodak

as you go” was taken even further when an advertisement used a

photograph taken on the moon with Kodak film.

KodAK AS you Go

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • KoDAK AS YoU Go 10

1914


1901 1914

ca. 1917


19151949

1981

1961

1989

1958


romAnCe LiveS on

in SnApSHotS

George Eastman handled all of the advertising for the Eastman

Dry Plate Company, later the Eastman Kodak Company, between

1888 and 1892, writing the slogans and designing the illustrations

himself. Eastman then appointed Lewis Bunnell Jones as manager

of advertising, and together in the first decade of Kodak they

created many of the themes that established the Kodak brand and

are hallmarks of the company’s advertising to this day.

one recurring theme is romance, specifically the idea that

romantic moments can be captured on film and “live on in

snapshots.” Words such as “pleasure,” “possession,” “moment,”

and “wonder” appear frequently in these ads that often show

couples in pastoral landscapes. Ads with more extensive copy also

describe the importance of capturing such moments, marking

an important psychological shift in Kodak’s marketing strategy.

While practicality and leisure remain important themes, allusions

to the necessity of photographing begin to emerge. the

fleeting, singular nature of romantic moments and the desire

to memorialize them is emphasized and exploited. these new

emotional entreaties within the ad copy, paired with imagery of

couples gazing at each other or into cameras, ultimately imply

that intimacy can be achieved and then permanently fixed through

the act of making a photograph.

Despite the use of affectionate language, these ads are depictions

of innocent scenes and rarely show couples touching. However, a

few rogue ads created by the J. Walter thompson Company for

Playboy magazine in the 1960s break that mold and promote the

possibility of making home movies without studio lights: “now.

Kodak let’s you take her day and night.”

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • RomAnCE LIvES on In SnAPSHotS 14

1904


1949 1951

1958 1967


1966 1972

1975 1989


At Home witH KodAK

A constant in Kodak advertising from the beginning of the

twentieth century was the emphasis the company placed on

domestic life by establishing an imperative to photograph home

and family. our collective impulse to photograph daily encounters

and share them with others, whether in photo albums and home

slideshows or now more publicly on facebook and Instagram, can

find its roots in Kodak’s earliest marketing campaigns. the ads

literally drew a frame around idyllic family scenes and urged readers

to “always have a camera ready” to capture such moments. Kodak

advertising helped train generations of people to photograph the

day-to-day happenings of their lives rather than simply experience

them, effectively engendering, as nancy West writes in Kodak and

the Lens of Nostalgia, “a poetics of domestic life.”

the domestic ad campaigns also have a sense of urgency about

them, even more so than the romantically themed ads. Longer and

more sentimental narratives are deployed in the copy, warning

consumers of the faultiness of memory and producing anxiety

about the consequences of not habitually making photographs.

the objective of these campaigns was to prompt consumers to

recognize the importance of photographing family history as it

happens, as well as the unrepeatable nature of such moments. As

nancy West states, “Kodak has done more than any other single

enterprise or individual to determine the uses and expectations

for snapshot photography, thereby also reshaping perceptions

of such abstract concepts as memory and evidence.” this

innovation to shift public consciousness toward the importance

of photographing personal moments was perhaps as crucial to

Kodak’s business as the advent of rolls of film. Who wouldn’t

want to buy a product advertised as a “Life Preserver”?

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • At HomE WItH KoDAK18

1914

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • At HomE WItH KoDAK 19

1914 1917

1949

1910

1964

1912

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • At HomE WItH KoDAK20

1968 1980

1986

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • At HomE WItH KoDAK 21

you preSS tHe Button, we do tHe reSt

Kodak’s first and most enduring slogan—“You press the button,

we do the rest”—was coined by George Eastman in 1888 and

intermittently appeared in advertisements throughout the

company’s history. Even when the actual slogan wasn’t used,

imparting this vision of photography as an effortless pursuit

remained a constant priority. Although Kodak persuaded consumers

of the convenience of its products early on, the company deployed

new campaigns that illustrated “Kodak Simplicity” on an annual

basis to renew this promise to the public.

By the 1960s this motto was embodied not only in ad copy but

also in the names of the cameras themselves. the introduction

of the Instamatic, Automatic 35, and Cine Automatic cameras in

combination with slogans such as “Snapshot Simple” and “too

Easy for Words” were indisputably effective in selling Kodak ideas

and products. By 1976 Kodak accounted for 90 percent of film and

85 percent of camera sales in America, and until the 1990s it was

regularly rated one of the world’s five most valuable brands.

1906

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • YoU PRESS tHE BUtton, WE Do tHE RESt 22

ca. 1900


ca. late 1940s

ca. 1923

1898

1929

1945

1912


1983

1968

1963

1986

1968

1971


Despite the fact that Kodak had an overwhelming market share

and led the industry with numerous technical innovations, the

company’s revenue peaked in 1996 and then steadily declined until

2011, when the company filed for bankruptcy. After a twenty-

month Chapter 11 reorganization, Kodak re-emerged as a much

smaller digital-imaging business with a commitment to producing

a limited amount of film.

one major force in Kodak’s decline was the shift to digital

image capture that began in 1990. While 1989 is the last year of

Kodak’s advertising history covered by this exhibition, the year

marks the end of an era for the company as well. Although it was

Kodak that invented the first digital camera, they did not perfect

the technology or market it as successfully as their competitors,

and Kodak executives readily admit this mistake. In an interview

with the Telegraph, Phil Cullimore, managing director of Kodak

in Europe, Africa, and the middle East, candidly stated, “We

created kryptonite and didn’t capitalize on the invention because

of concerns over what it was going to do to the film business.”

As Kodak fell behind in digital technology, their competitors

began to beat them at their own game, employing the advertising

strategies that Kodak had pioneered for the last hundred years. So

while Kodak shaped our collective expectation that photography

should be easy and enjoyable, this ideology ultimately backfired

as other companies were able to simplify, and glorify, digital

technology more effectively. Essentially, once there was a product

that required less effort than Kodak’s film cameras, consumers

started to take their business elsewhere.

epiLoGue

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE26

1902

An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE 27

2008

1928


2004

1915


1967


the knowledge of Kodak’s current embattled status allows for

entirely new readings of many of their advertising campaigns.

Slogans, such as “the Kodak Way: Dark-Room Abolished” (1902)

and “Could you picture what the world would look like without

Kodak film?” (1981), seem eerily prophetic. the Kodak campaigns

that emphasized the lack of skill and decision making involved

in making pictures also take on new meaning, as we now know

the height to which this ideology has been taken. We now live in

a world in which camera phones reside in almost every pocket,

capturing but also interrupting the “treasured moments” of

our lives. George Eastman’s dream of making photography an

“everyday affair” has been realized far beyond what he could have

ever imagined. the ability to instantly capture and share images

with an ever-widening circle of viewers has indeed transformed

society. However, with this increased ability to save every moment,

should we also ask ourselves what has been lost?

1982 1961



CEntEr for doCumEntAry StudiES At dukE univErSity

April 10–September 13, 2014 • Porch & university Galleries

Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University1317 W. Pettigrew St. | Durham, NC 27705 | 919-660-3663 | documentarystudies.duke.edu

Gallery Hours: Monday to Thursday 9 a.m.–7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

an everyday affair: selling the kodak image to america 1888-1989

Documents

kodak image

kodak film

kodak story

eastman kodak companybetween

everyday affairselling

eastman kodak broke

everyday affair surveys

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