Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photographic Industry, 1839-1925 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) [Paperback]

Reese V. Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1987 | Series: Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology

From the early daguerreotype to the rise of the motion picture, Images and Enterprise explores the business, technical, and social factors that transformed the American photographic industry between 1839 and 1925. Reese Jenkins's prize-winning history traces the technical changes that culminated in George Eastman's creation of the Kodak system of amateur photography in the 1880s. Its compact, simply operated cameras would revolutionize an entire industry—even if at first the whole camera had to be mailed back to the company for developing and reloading. Images and Enterprise also vividly portrays the emergence of cinematography in its relationship to traditional photography and reveals the growing importance of institutionalized research, as Eastman Kodak and the other American and European photographic materials manufacturers strove to develop commercially practical color photography.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A superb case study of the institutional response of American business to the coming of modern markets and modern technology. This book should be required reading for all historians concerned with the institutional development of the American economy and all economists interested in industrial organization and the theory of modern business enterprise.

(Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Technology and Culture )

Reese V. Jenkins has ably and probably definitively captured the technical and business history of [the photographic] industry.... Images and Enterprise is lavishly and cleverly illustrated with the pictures needed to understand the technology and enjoy the flavor of the enterprise.

(Carroll Pursell American Historical Review )

Product Details

• Paperback: 391 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (October 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801835496
• ISBN-13: 978-0801835490
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,556,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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