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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 •
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
“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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • IntRoDUCtIon 8
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.
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • IntRoDUCtIon 9
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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • KoDAK AS YoU Go 11
1901 1914
ca. 1917
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • KoDAK AS YoU Go 12
19151949
1981
1961
1989
1958
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • KoDAK AS YoU Go 13
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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • RomAnCE LIvES on In SnAPSHotS 15
1949 1951
1958 1967
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • RomAnCE LIvES on In SnAPSHotS 16
1966 1972
1975 1989
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • RomAnCE LIvES on In SnAPSHotS 17
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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • YoU PRESS tHE BUtton, WE Do tHE RESt 23
ca. late 1940s
ca. 1923
1898
1929
1945
1912
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • YoU PRESS tHE BUtton, WE Do tHE RESt 24
1983
1968
1963
1986
1968
1971
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • YoU PRESS tHE BUtton, WE Do tHE RESt 25
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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE28
2004
1915
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE 29
1967
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE30
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
An EvERYDAY AffAIR • EPILoGUE 31
1981
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
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.