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Courtesy of Kurt Schlosser
Emerson Schlosser, second from left, at Harvard Business School in 1934, the same year he started at Eastman Kodak Co.
By Kurt Schlosser, msnbc.com Entertainment Producer
For a story that has been developing over the past several years, I still had a hard time grasping the news out of my hometown of Rochester, N.Y., on Thursday. Kodak, the once mighty maker of everything having to do with the pictures on my walls, was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
I left Rochester almost 20 years ago, but the memories of what Kodak meant to the city, my family and why I love photography have been everlasting.
My dad’s father, Emerson Schlosser, spent 40 years at Kodak. He rose to become the superintendent of the roll film division before retiring in 1974. I remember getting packs of Kodak film wrapped as presents every year at Christmas. My dad says Emerson, who died in 2000 at age 90, “never realized what digital [photography] was” before his death. I imagine if I photographed him today on my iPhone and posted it to flickr before his eyes -- for the entire world to see in an instant -- he’d be a little speechless.
Courtesy of Kurt Schlosser
A cherished Kodak moment: Kurt Schlosser, with his mother in New York City in 1972.
As a boy I remember shooting on disc cameras and looking at a Brownie like it wasn’t an antique. My dad remembers developing pictures in a home dark room his father set up in the basement.
“We were a Kodak family,” my dad, Richard, says. “I can’t say Kodak came before everything else [for Emerson] but it was right up there.”
My mother, Kathy, and my father were both summer interns at Kodak. So was my dad’s brother. My mother’s mother Margaret worked in Kodacolor photofinishing, developing and printing people’s photographs for more than 20 years through the 1950s and ‘60s and into the ‘70s. My aunt spent 30-plus years as a managerial secretary. My wife, also from Rochester, counts her mom, dad and grandfather among the faithful at one time or another. It’s what people did. The stories are the same out of evolving company towns in Michigan and Ohio and across the country. Some people built cars or appliances. My family helped build … memories.
As it snows in Seattle this week and I look out at the fluffy blanket covering my yard, I remember playing in the yard of my childhood home, just blocks from one of Kodak’s industrial parks. Large smokestacks always left little black flecks of soot on the deep snow – something as synonymous with the town as that company. The soot never stopped me from eating the snow, and over the years, when I always chose the yellow box of film over the green one, I guess you could say Kodak was in my blood.
Related PhotoBlog posts
- Report: Kodak prepares for Chapter 11 filing
- Kodak struggles to reinvent itself in a digital age
- Please don’t take my Kodachrome away
- Photographer recalls Kodak’s fading moment
Employees of Eastman Kodak, the company best known for making film and cameras, are now bracing for layoffs. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
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Buggy Whips! 125 years ago the victim of technology was the buggywhip industry! Today it's Kodak and film cameras
Time and progress marches on! Someday air travel and petroleum will be bankrupt as new technology enters our world!
First off Kodak isn't dead just yet. As you might recall GM filed for chapter 11 a few years back. Also film will always be available from some company as it's an art medium which the horse and buggy were not. That said even horse drawn buggies are still around just look at the Amish. Intelligent and interesting people will grow bored of digital and at least try film at some point. The masses who enjoy crap like Transformers will continue gobbling up any new tech that comes their way with no curiousity of how it came to be. I'd like to know what Kodaks plan is as they still turn a profit on film abeit smaller obviously than in the past. Selling their digital cameras at a loss was about as dumb a thing as a company could do.
Yeah, right, time marches on, but some of the changes stink. We are force fed "new and improved" gadgets that we don't need. We change for the sake of change so that someone can profit by it. With all our "stuff", we are no happier than our grandparents were, and maybe less so. We live frenzied, anxious lives and we try to fill voids in them by telling ourselves that our new, digital cameras will give us happiness that our ancesters never knew. Baloney. Look at old family photos taken with a Kodak. People are happy in them. I'm not exactly elderly, but I love using a camera that takes FILM, I love the clicking sound from an old typewriter. I love the smell and feel of real, physical books. I shut the damn TV off once in a while and converse with family. I dry my dishes by hand. I don't own a cell phone or an ipod; a computer is enough. Poor, poor, deprived me. Not.
It's just not that simple Mr. Greybull, time marches forward for sure but Kodak already was blessed with enough patents to move forward with time and profit handily. This failure is squarely on the shoulders of upper management, PERIOD! My personal thank you from George MC Fisher does not have the franchise and shine it once did, in fact George did nothing but bleed Kodak, he was the beginning of the end. I bleed yellow too, it was my entire life, the next time one of you "feels up" your girlfriend or wife thank Kodak Health imaging, the pioneers of mammography and much more.
I agree most of our problems rest with management, not labor.
And the day I was hoping will never happen is here. I worked for Kodak Health Sciences Division for more than seven years during the 90s and I have so many fond memories of my time there. The company treated us well and this reflected in the sales and terrific market share our products had during our time against Fuji, Agfa, Konica, and DuPont.
I had high hopes George Fisher would be able to do a good job to in the transition from the analog to the digital age for Kodak. I left the company when I could not see much success from him.
I wish the people in Rochester, NY and all the other EK employees the best of luck in this difficult period. My blood will forever run yellow.
One of my teachers at RIT designed one of the early 70's Kodak logos, so I know just what you mean about bleeding yellow. I love my digital cameras, but the feeling of opening back of my Nikon F2A and putting in a roll of Kodak Plus x or Tri X was just truly magical.
Evolve or Die
Your attitude is too simplistic. DITTO.
Kodak was intentionally killed off for one reason and one reason only--consolidation.
It took a few brilliant men to build, and legions of BAD American managers to bring it down.
Once again, Dilbert at the steering wheel.
Tonenine you are spot on. The beginning of the end for Kodak came in the 80s when upper management chose to spend huge sums of money in R&D to create the Disc Camera when SLRs and high quality point and shoots were in demand. It's aperture was tiny, pictures were below average, film was expensive and so was developing. I can't think of a greater formula for failure. Market research was nonexistent as a camera that could easily fit in your shirt pocket was simply not in demand. Furthermore, marketing a high quality SLR could have been realized with that R&D money; creating a new brand name would have been good as Kodak had already sullied its name by making cheap little cameras that would have forced the market to not take it seriously in the high quality SLR segment (just like Panasonic created the Technics name for its component audio products). No one is to blame for that or the horrendously slow response to digital photography and computer peripherals other than the executive office.
Being able to successfully analyze and then respond to an expanding and dynamic marketplace, in a timely manner is one of the critical success factors in any business. Whether it be oil, food, services or family photographs. Let's face it, Kodak was primarily known for one thing (regardless of the great things they did in other industries) - Film and Film Processing.
Hopefully the company can successfully re-organize and continue to lead innovation in other than film technology.
I truly understand what has happened to Kodak. Poor management, not looking ahead. Many other things too many to list here, but that doesn't make it any easier for a former RIT photography student to hear. It's a sad day. I can only hope that something positive will happen before they are gone forever. There are millions of stories that relate to some sort of family gathering with some version of a Kodak camera or at the very least Kodak film.
No matter who fault it is, it is a sad day for Rochester. My dad worked there retired there and I worked my way though collage there. If you lived in Rochester you knew someone who worked there. Sad really sad.
My dad worked at EK in the 40's and 50's. He was a native of Rochester, as are my brother and I. We left in 1956 because dad hated the weather. We have been in CA ever since. We have many many slides and pictures of EK and Rochester. I wish everyone the best of luck.
During WWII, my father, a handsome twentysomething dressed in his army uniform, was a Kodak model. He and few other men posed for Kodak. Those were beautiful photos to sell film. Yes, kodak was big.
The article made me sad because I too bleed yellow. My Mom and Dad worked there. My brother is still there going through the pain that has mainly been caused by bad management decisions. I too worked there for 26 years but had enough in 2004 and took an early retirement buyout. Leaving my hometown and family behind was tough but a good decision and less stress. Going through multiple layoffs can kill a person. Especially since it was always the little people. Get rid of them but you still have 15 million bosses. It was a awesome place to work. Coming out of high school they treated their employees well and it was a fun place to work. A concept that is lost in this world. Their absolutely ignorant decisions to keep riding the film cash cow killed them. Kodak long before anyone had developed the digital technology but kept riding the film. Stupid. All that worked there knew it. Hopefully for the many of my friends and family that are still there they will come around. It saddens me it was Rochester and put Rochester on the map. Fortunately Rochester has with stood the constant downsizing and people fleeing to other parts of the country. It will always be my hometown. Hopefully they will straighten the ship. I just don't know how because like the rest of us I am not sure what kind of business they even do there now.
I notice that many former Kodakers recall how they furthered their education by working for the company during or after college. That's no surprise. George Eastman was a major donor to many colleges and universities because he wanted to develop a strong R&D team and help talent grow from within. He also treated employees well, from top to bottom, and created unique benefits for them. That's a way different attitude from modermn CEOs, who seem to want only fully trained and experienced people with advance degrees who are ready to work like slaves for peanuts.
I starting working at Kodak in Rochester at age 18 in the mid-60's because my parents couldn't afford to send me to college, and the company offered employees a generous tuition aid program. Thanks to a dumb-luck first assignment, I learned the art of motion pictures and the craft of film restoration at the George Eastman House (aka the International Museum of Photography). After nine years of night school I earned a BS degree, but far more important was the priceless knowledge and experience in film history, photographic technology and cinematography I was getting at the same time -- and getting paid for it.
After 14 years at GEH I left and moved on, but I have fond memories of Kodak. It was one of the best companies one could work for, with generous benefits, annual bonuses and a unique management-employee relationship that made unions unnecessary. Why? Mr. Eastman believed in the social contract between company and employee, and he invested in his workforce. The mantra was: Work hard and do your best for each customer, and you'll be treated right and well. IMO that is the secret to success in business and in life.
It's too bad that Mr. Eastman's successors weren't as innovative, forward-thinking and nimble as he was in keeping Kodak in the forefront of image technology. Perhaps Chapter 11 bankruptcy will be the jump start Kodak Office needs to start thinking and acting more like that remarkable young man who dreamed of putting cameras in everybody's hands.
MEMO TO MARTIN SCORCESE: Loved Hugo. Now make a film about George Eastman, who make his work and yours possible.
Thank you Mr. Schlosser. I couldn't have said it any better. Kodak was in the business of making memories. My Dad worked for Kodak for 43 years, retiring in the '70's. He was part of something big and exciting and he loved going to work. He worked in the Film Testing/Quality Control division and was proud of the work he did. He had lasting friendships and moved his way up the ranks, honored for his diligence. His Kodak salary sent my sisters and me to college. My father taught me how to "see" and frame my photos. And, yes, many hours in his home made dark room. I hold onto my SLR and a few roles of film, because nostalgia keeps me from tossing them. And yes, technology moves us on, but I wish we could keep the old, good stuff. ...tape recorders, SLR cameras, a good slide show on a huge screen...Power Point is weak next to that big screen and Kodachrome slides...we have to "settle " I guess. Tsk tsk!