In 1880 George Eastman commenced the manufacture and sale of gelatin photographic dry plates in Rochester, New York. From that undertaking, the Eastman Kodak Company, incorporated as an American company in 1902, has developed. In 1912 Mr Eastman decided to organize a laboratory, independent of the factory laboratories, which should carry out work on both the science and practice of photography. He was influenced by his observation of the success of industrial research under Dr Whitney’s direction at the research laboratory of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York, U. S. A. and of the laboratories of the great German dye works. He had been particularly impressed by the work done by the Bayer Company at Elberfeld. In 1906 I had completed my thesis for the doctorate of science at University College, London, the subject being the theory of the photographic process, and had joined the old-established but very small firm of Wratten and Wainwright, Ltd., of Croydon as joint managing director. At Croydon both the conduct of research on photography and its application to the manufacture of photographic materials were continued actively, so that by 1912 many new materials had been introduced, especially panchromatic plates and the light filters and dark-room safe-lights required for their use; and the little firm was flourishing.
The Kodak research laboratories