Illinois Technograph v. 100, iss. 4 Feb. 1985

published or submitted for publicatio

The Eastman Kodak Co. and the Canadian Kodak Co. Ltd: Re-structuring the Canadian photographic industry, c.1885-1910

Within the accepted historiography of photography, the importance of George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company (EKC) has become unassailable. They have been placed as the key, and often sole, agent in “revolutionizing” the amateur photography market in the late nineteenth century. While the photographic landscape and market of 1885-1914 was indeed radically altered, the historiographical dominance of what can be identified as the “Kodak story” has obscured the means through which EKC’s successful re-structuring of the existing manufacturing and distribution networks of photographic materials occurred. I argue that the changes effected by Eastman and the EKC began not with imaging desires, but with their acknowledgment, and profound understanding of the existing and competing interests within the photographic industry. This thesis focuses on the EKC’s re-structuring of the extant and evolving communities involved in the manufacturing and distribution of photographic materials in Canada between 1885-1910. Focusing particularly on the period immediately surrounding the establishment of the Canadian Kodak Co. Limited in 1899, I demonstrate the re-structuring processes at work, including: market and financial diversification; governmental lobbying; purchase and mergers; and other business and marketing-based strategies. I frame my theoretical positions and analysis of network re-structuring through the experiences of Ottawa professional photographer and photographic business owner William James Topley (active 1868-1907), and CKCoLtd manager John Garrison Palmer (active 1886-1921). Topley and Garrison’s professional experiences and interactions with expanded communities of photographic consumers and industry participants provide an opportunity for specific and detailed findings which challenge understandings of the evolution of the practice of photography during this transitional period. In doing so, I provide evidence of the primary role network re-structuring played in the EKC’s ability to shape the wider international photographic industry to their advantage in the early twentieth century

Méliès Boots

Before he became the father of cinematic special effects, George Méliès (1861-1938) was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist. Proceeding from these beginnings, Méliès Boots traces how the full trajectory of Georges Méliès’ career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which Méliès operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès’ unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what Méliès called "the new profession of the cinéaste." The book also reveals Méliès' connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group’s relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity. By positioning Méliès in relation to the material culture of his time, Solomon demonstrates that Méliès’ work was expressive of a distinctly modern, and modernist, sensibility that appeared in France during the 1880s in the wake of the Second Industrial Revolution

Bodies and labour: industrialisation, dance and performance

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis presents an interdisciplinary analysis of ideas regarding the introduction of technologies in the field of dance and performance since the industrial era. The first two chapters analyse different historical periods, thus creating a parallel between the establishment of work-science, and emerging methods and styles within performing arts that utilise technology as a core element for its creation. The historical examination of the field of work-science studies allows the sketching of a variety of relationships between labour and technical developments, focusing especially on the systematisation of productive processes, the integration of new technical developments and the measurements of body’s rhythms and capacities. Therefore, rather than presenting a full historical study of industrialisation and technological performance, this research proposes a segmented analysis of two different periods: firstly, a parallel between Taylorism and Electric Dance since the late nineteenth century; and secondly, some relevant notions of Fordism, Mass Ornament and film studies from the 1920s. In the last part of this thesis, I present some general ideas on post-Fordism and digital performance that will serve as a base for future research development. This investigation is rooted in the field of performing arts, introducing ideas and concepts from labour studies and generating a critical approach to the integration of technologies within performing arts and its aesthetical, methodological and creative outcomes. The research encompasses a wide range of perspectives, from early photographic experiments, film studies, entertainment culture, video games, and digital technologies, formulating a general approach to technological transformations since the late nineteenth century. The key question throughout this research is precisely a double-sided adaptation between movement style and technical development: a process of intermedial configurations based on technological progress, analysed from a labour-science perspective, and then applied to performance art and entertainment culture

Méliès Boots

Before he became the father of cinematic special effects, George Méliès (1861-1938) was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist. Proceeding from these beginnings, Méliès Boots traces how the full trajectory of Georges Méliès’ career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which Méliès operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès’ unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what Méliès called "the new profession of the cinéaste." The book also reveals Méliès' connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group’s relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity. By positioning Méliès in relation to the material culture of his time, Solomon demonstrates that Méliès’ work was expressive of a distinctly modern, and modernist, sensibility that appeared in France during the 1880s in the wake of the Second Industrial Revolution

The development and growth of British photographic manufacturing and retailing, 1839-1914

This study presents a new perspective on British photography through an examination of the manufacturing and retailing of photographic equipment and sensitised materials between 1839 and 1914. This is contextualised around the demand for photography from studio photographers, amateurs and the snapshotter. It notes that an understanding of the photographic image cannot be achieved without this as it directly affected how, why and by whom photographs were made. Individual chapters examine how the manufacturing and retailing of photographic goods was initiated by philosophical instrument makers, opticians and chemists from 1839 to the early 1850s; the growth of specialised photographic manufacturers and retailers; and the dramatic expansion in their number in response to the demands of a mass market for photography from the late1870s. The research discusses the role of technological change within photography and the size of the market. It identifies the late 1880s to early 1900s as the key period when new methods of marketing and retailing photographic goods were introduced to target growing numbers of snapshotters. Particular attention is paid to the role of Kodak in Britain from 1885 as a manufacturer and retailer. A substantial body of newly discovered data is presented in a chronological narrative. In the absence of any substantive prior work this thesis adopts an empirical approach firmly rooted in the photographic periodicals and primary sources of the period. Wider literature from the history of retailing, manufacturing and Victorian studies supports it. The study concludes that three key periods, the early 1850s, the 1870s and the 1890s, were when substantive changes to photographic technology each released a latent demand for photography initially from the commercial portrait photographer and then, respectively, from the amateur and the snapshotter. This was met and enhanced by new manufacturing, retailing and marketing methods within photography underpinned by wider economic, social and economic changes