Towards the end of 1887 photographic entrepreneur George Eastman was preparing to launch his ‘little roll holder breast camera’, which he believed would prove popular with the growing market of amateur photographers. In order to promote global sales he wanted to give the camera a snappy and distinctive name that would be recognizable in any language. After experimenting with various combinations of vowels and consonants – aided, it was said, by an anagram game set or possibly a bowl of alphabet soup – he hit upon the name ‘Kodak.’

It may have been a made-up word but the prominence of the letter ‘K’ was not purely arbitrary – Eastman confessed to a liking for ‘K’, partly because his mother’s maiden name was Kilbourn but also because it seemed to him ‘a strong, incisive sort of letter.’ His first public use of the Kodak name was in a letter to his patent lawyers on 28 January 1888. Four months later, the first ‘original Kodak’ went on sale and proved a runaway success. The tradename was registered in the United States on 4th September 1888 but when Eastman tried to do the same in England, the Comptroller of the British Patent Office requested a letter explaining the derivation of the word. In response, Eastman confirmed that
‘Kodak is not a foreign name or word; it was constructed by me to serve a definite purpose. It has the following merits as a trade-mark word: First. It is short. Second. It is not capable of mispronunciation.
Third. It does not resemble anything in the art and cannot be associated with anything in the art except the Kodak.‘Some years later he clarified the matter further in a letter to Professor John Manley, of Chicago University: ‘It was a purely arbitrary combination of letters, not derived in whole or part from any existing word, arrived at after considerable search for a word that would answer all requirements for a trade-mark name. The principal of these were that it must be short; incapable of being misspelled so as to destroy its identity; must have a vigorous and distinctive personality; and must meet the requirements of the various foreign trade-mark laws, the English being the one most difficult to satisfy owing to the very narrow interpretation that was being given to their laws at the time.’Now, the English may have been guilty of placing a narrow interpretation upon their patent laws, but this was not the case regarding their views on the etymology of ‘Kodak.’ Despite Eastman’s openness about its mundane origins, alternative theories abounded. The following letters appeared in Amateur Photographer during the latter half of 1896: Odds and Ends (editorial) 7th August 1896, p.112

The Eastman Company can certainly say with truth that they have added a new word to the English language. To many people, “Kodak” is the generic term for any kind of hand-camera, and shopkeepers are often asked for one in this sense. The new papers often use the word as a verb, and speak of people going “to Kodak” places, as readily as the term were to be found in Johnson or Webster.* It was indeed a happy thought to invent outright a new combination of letters; one without any worrying Latin, Greek, or other derivative. That it has been good for its originators goes without saying, and we have no kind of doubt that the actual value of the trademark, “Kodak,” would run into five figures. But the future lexicographer will certainly be puzzled over this word, which has had no forefathers, although he will probably soon find for the orphan a Sanscrit, or possibly a Chinese word which seems to bear sufficient likeness to it to claim relationship.

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‘Kodak’ is in fact still found as a verb in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1961) and the OED traces the first use as a verb to 1891, but the columnist was correct about the attraction people would feel in finding parallels for the word elsewhere. Over the next couple of months, Amateur Photographer became Amateur Lexicographer, beginning with these two letters on 14 August 1896, p.129:

Sir,
Your remarks in the Amateur Photographer on the origins of the word Kodak made me wonder if it could not be found in Hebrew. Now קָדַח in that language means to burn, whence be bright or brilliant. Kahdak is pretty near Kodak, and Kodaks have had, it seems, a brilliant career. It is quite possible therefore to imagine the Eastman Company, as being true wise men from the East, putting a strange word on the market, and depending on the merits of the camera, turning the word Kodak into a valuable – as you point out – trademark. To others may it not be said “Go thou and do likewise.”

Yours, etc.,
Allan Bayne

Sir,
The writer of Odds and Ends in your journal of 7th Aug., seems puzzled over the origins of the word “Kodak.” This word, common in the Hindostanee language, means a youth or boy. It is derived from the Persian. It is spelt exactly like we do, but the “a” is pronounced like “u” in duck. Thus, here is another instance of there being nothing new under the sun. Other oriental words have been anglicised in the same manner in connection with trade purposes.

Yours, etc.,
W.J.F.

W.J.F. was quite right about ‘kodak’, as shown in this excerpt from the fourth edition of John Shakespear’s Dictionary of Hindustani and English (London, 1849.) It is fairly likely that ‘W.J.F.’, whatever his interest in photography, had spent time in India under the British Raj: the word for ‘boy’ or ‘lad’ would have been familiar to any colonial administrator or military officer.

The background to Mr Bayne’s knowledge of Hebrew can only be guessed at, although his quoting from the Gospel of St Luke indicates he knew his Bible; possibly he had learnt some Hebrew to help his reading of the Old Testament. His argument linking קָדַח to ‘kodak’ is somewhat far-fetched, however. קָדַח would be transliterated as qadach, and pronounced more like ‘kaw-dach’, lacking Eastman’s click-click ‘k’ sound. Not to be outdone, Mr Bayne returned to the discussion on 28th August p.169. It is at this point that both his pen and his train of thought began to run rather too fast:

Sir,
The Hindostanee word “Kodak,” mentioned by W.J.F., is perhaps found in our own language – in English in the word “kiddy,” and in Scotch, “cuddy” (ass). Cuddy ass = once perhaps to boy ass, is prevalent in Scotland. It is quite possible the Hebrew קָדַח to burn = French, chaud i.e. in English, hot. The verb,”kid,” meaning to show, discover, allied to the German kunde (not a bad word for a camera), meaning knowledge, news etc., is just the first part of kodak.
Webster is dissatisfied with the derivation of “God” from “good.” “God” may be derived from the same word as the French chaud, the letters of both being the same etymologically. Both begin with a guttural and end with a dental.
“Goad” would mean the thorn-like flame as well as [the] feeling it produces.
“Guide” would mean light, giving therefore directing power of light.
“Goat” and “Kodak boy” as above, would mean the active, leaping power of fire.
“God” would then mean light in all its powers.
– I am, etc.Allan BaynePerhaps wisely, W.J.F. declined to respond to Mr Bayne’s ever-evolving theories, and further discussion of the matter was absent from columns of the Amateur Photographer for the next fortnight. Then, on 11th September, Mr Bayne returned to make a few final points of a decidedly spiritual nature. (p.209)Sir,

Ere we depart from the word Kodak, as suggested by your editorial note, the chief word has yet to be spoken. If “God, as we found, may mean light in all its powers (Kodak, God act), test the new meaning in one supreme place. Solomon’s conclusion will then be, light (for “God”) will bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or whether it be evil. As the photographer’s work is all brought to judgment and is worthy of gold, silver, copper and writing, when brought to the light of sun and soul, so it is with the works of every man, woman and child – our works, from a photographic exhibition, a one woman or man exhibition, to the spiritual powers that surround us. “There is nothing secret” – see the 139th Psalm. The unseen writing of the seen is not all, there is also the writing of the unseen. In Eccles. X,20 there is the Hadography (unseen writing) of the thoughts also going on.
“The eye cannot be filled with seeing” all the finest photographs, and photography is not an end in itself. Are not all the care, time, knowledge, experience and guidance required to produce a photograph, but a poor thing in their results, unless they be a picture and only a picture of what is necessary to produce a man and woman worthy of their divine original.

Yours, etc.
Allan Bayne

The Scriptural quotations that Bayne cites in support of his ramblings are apt: Psalm 139 begins ‘Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say,’ while Ecclesiastes Chap. 10, vs. 20 warns ‘You perceive my thoughts from afar…Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely.’ I remain unsure about what he means by ‘Hadography’, although possibly he is referring to Steganography, a form of unseen writing (from the Greek στεγανός, meaning ‘concealed’ and γραφή. meaning ‘writing.’

I can only imagine how bemused George Eastman would have been.

Tomorrow – Freudian interpretations of ‘You push the button and we do the rest.’

It was 175 years ago today that the invention of Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (left) was officially made public. On 7 January 1839 François Arago told an astonished meeting of the Académie des Sciences in Paris about Daguerre’s success with his new technique for capturing and fixing an image. Details were not revealed in his speech, but members of the Académie were shown examples of the images, which came to bear the name of their inventor.

Daguerreotypes were made by holding a thin plate of silver-coated copper over iodine fumes which coated the surface in light-sensitive silver iodide. When exposed to light in the camera, this produced a latent image which could then be developed with heated mercury. The image was then fixed using common salt – a process later improved by using ‘hypo’ or hyposulphite of soda.

The highly polished silver surface of the plate gives daguerreotypes their distinctive mirror-like reflective appearance, but it also makes them quite tricky to photograph – my attempt to photograph one of my own daguerreotypes (right) does not do justice to this lovely image of two young girls.The great beauty of Daguerre’s process is that the resulting images are remarkably detailed, clear and precise. This gave them the edge over the rival process invented by William Henry Fox Talbot (below) who was caught off guard by Arago’s announcement.

Henry Talbot had been working on his own ‘photogenic drawing’ process for several years but, unaware of Daguerre’s research on the other side of the Channel, he felt no sense of urgency about publishing his findings. When news of Arago’s announcement reached England he bitterly regretted his tardiness, and – until he knew more about Daguerre’s process – Talbot feared that his efforts might all have been for nothing. He hastily wrote up his notes and presented a paper to the Royal Society at the end of the month. It still took a while to catch up with the Frenchman, and Talbot’s early images were no competition for the jewel-like precision of the daguerreotype. By 1841, however, he had made significant advances and his ‘calotype’ process possessed aesthetic qualities that the daguerreotype lacked.

Although this image looks similar to the daguerreotype above, it is in fact an ambrotype, made using the wet collodion process. A closer look will reveal that the image is on a glass plate that has a horizontal crack. Ambrotypes have a darker, duller appearance than daguerreotypes.I bought this in an antique shop and they are relatively inexpensive.

The wet collodion process was invented in 1851 and involved pouring a solution of collodion over a glass plate which was then immersed in silver nitrate solution and exposed while still wet: hence the name. The resulting negative image could be used to produce any number of positive prints; these were usually made on albumen paper.The ambrotype is a slight variation on this process: instead of using the glass plate as a negative, the back of the plate was painted with black varnish and it was then placed inside a sealed case similar to those used to protect daguerreotypes. When viewed against the dark background, the negative image actually looks like a positive one – an illusion often further enhanced through the use of hand tinting.Archer published details of his process in The Chemist magazine in March 1851. Daguerre died four months later, on 10 July 1851. Despite its reliance on dangerous chemicals, the wet collodion process soon supplanted the daguerreotype.

Daguerre may have given his name to the process, but there were others who contributed to the invention of the daguerreotype. He had been seeking ways to capture images since the mid-1820s, while earning his living with hugely popular diorama shows in Paris and London. These comprised two or more large paintings that were displayed in darkened auditoriums with an ingenious arrangement of theatrical effects such as moving stages and alternating light effects. This oil painting of Holyrood Chapel (left) was painted by Daguerre in 1824 and was used as the basis for a diorama show in Paris, London and Liverpool. In 1829 he went into partnership with Nicéphore Niépce, whose View from the Window at Le Gras (1826) is the world’s oldest surviving photograph. Niépce died in 1833 and his contribution to Daguerre’s achievements was ignored until relatively recently.