Page 10 - Pharmacy History 29 Nov 2006

we found that the number which did so was relatively small. In order to make a large business we would have to reach the general public.”
Eastman’s faith in the importance of advertising, both to the company and to the public, was unbounded. The very first KODAK products were advertised in leading newspapers
and periodicals of the day – with ads written by Eastman himself.
Eastman coined the slogan,
‘You push the button, we do the rest’, when he introduced the Kodak camera in 1888 and within a year, it became a
around the world and the trademark ‘Kodak’, is familiar to nearly everyone and, thanks to Eastman’s inventive genius, anyone could now take pictures with a handheld camera simply by pressing a button.
He made photographers of us all.
Beyond his inventive genius, Eastman blended human and democratic qualities, with remarkable foresight, into the building of his business.
He believed employees should have more than just good wages – a way of thinking that was far ahead of management people of his era.
Early in his business, Eastman began
Carl W. Ackerman, his biographer, writing in 1932, said: “Mr. Eastman was a giant in his day. The social philosophy, which he practiced in building his company, was not only far in advance of the thinking during his lifetime, but it will be years before it is generally recognized
and accepted.”
Dental clinics were also of great interest to Eastman. He devised complete plans and financial backing for a $2.5 million dental clinic for Rochester. He then started a large- scale, remedial dental program for children. Dental clinics were also given to London, Paris, Rome, Brussels and Stockholm.
When asked why he favored dental clinics, he replied, “I get more results for my money than in any other philanthropic scheme. It is a medical fact that children can have a better chance in life with better looks, better health and more vigor if the teeth, nose, throat and mouth are taken proper care of at the crucial time of childhood.”
Eastman loved music and wanted others to enjoy the beauty and pleasure of music. He established
and supported the Eastman School
of Music, a theatre, and a symphony orchestra. “It is fairly easy to employ skillful musicians. It is impossible to buy appreciation of music. Yet without a large body of people who get joy out of it, any attempt to develop musical resources of any city is doomed to failure,” he said. So his plan had a practical formula for exposing the public to music – with the result
that the people of Rochester have for decades supported their own philharmonic orchestra.
He was a modest, unassuming man, an inventor, a technologist, an organizer, an executive with vision, a patriotic citizen and a philanthropist.
Surely George Eastman would turn
in his grave if he knew that in the
year 2004, Eastman Kodak would no longer be producing film cameras. The digital age had arrived.
Reference
1. www.kodak,com:80/aboutKodak/
kodakHistory/KodakTheComp.shtml. Web site visited 3/11/2004.
Eastman’s faith in the importance of advertising, both to the company and to the public, was unbounded.
well known phrase.
Later, with advertising managers and agencies carrying out his ideas, magazines, newspapers, displays and billboards bore the Kodak banner.
Space was taken at world expositions, and the ‘Kodak Girl’, with the style of her clothes and the camera she carried changing every year, smiled engagingly at photographers everywhere. In 1997, the word ‘Kodak’ sparkled from an electric sign on London’s Trafalgar Square – one of the first such signs to be used in advertising.
Today, company advertising appears
planning for ‘dividends on wages’
for employees. His first act, in 1899, was the distribution of a substantial sum of his own money – an outright gift – to each person who worked for him. With these benefits, and the Wage Dividend, employees could confidently look forward to a more secure future.
10 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 3 ■ no 25 ■ March 2005