Page 6 - RD_2024-03

Scientific Journals from England suggested that
some photographers there were making Dry
Plates at home that could be successfully left for
several days before exposure and then processed
at home even days later. An experimental
formula was included in the article. At night
George took over his mum’s kitchen and went to
work using the experimental formula – it worked
– giving excellent results. Local professional
photographers heard of George’s success and
they started requesting a dozen dry plates at a
time for testing – the rest is history – Mrs
Eastman’s kitchen became a very busy place
both day and night, but George kept his day job
– just in case ...

The top floor of this building in State Street Rochester
became the Eastman Dry Plate Company’s first factory -- it
employed 6 people – the first of hundreds of factories and
vast multitude of staff all over the world as the demand for
the product quickly outgrew the capacity of each plan

By 1879 George had invented a mass production machine and process that enabled his
plates to be made on a commercial scale and in partnership with Mr Henry Stone they
rd
registered the Eastman Dry Plate Company located on the 3 floor of a building on State
Street Rochester NY. This was the beginning of an enterprise the scale of which truly
defies imagination. Six months later George resigned from the bank job to give
photography his full attention and every year for the rest of his life a new developmental
enterprise was added to his companies achievements -- some of these “Big Bangs” we
have explored in recent RD articles.
This glass top table 50 ft. long
with its chemical hopper that
traversed the length of the table
was Mr Eastman’s invention to
mass produce Dry Plates. It was
the first of the “Big Bangs” –
then came the second –a
celluloid base produced on this
same plate making table.
Imagine that moment when an
excited George Eastman lifted
the corner of the new
experimental base “– look it’s a
clear transparent sheet – we
have produced a FILM of
celluloid!” another new word in
photography.
6 REEL DEALS March 2024