Word: polaroiding
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Salesmen at Boston's Jordan Marsh department store just before Christmas 1948 proudly touted the new cameras with the slogan "Snap it, see it." As curious customers watched in fascination, Polaroid pictures almost miraculously developed right inside the camera in one minute. Photography's professionals dismissed it as a gimmick, but Edwin Land had just founded the instant-photo industry, now a $1.2 billion business. Last week Land, 70, one of the premier tinkerers of American history, announced his retirement as chief executive officer of Polaroid amid a whirlwind of controversy. Land's departure will...
Three years ago, when Land introduced Polavision to an amazed stockholders' meeting, Polaroid had been one of the great success stories of corporate America. Founder and boss for 43 years, Harvard Dropout Edwin Land is an inventive genius ranking not far behind Thomas Edison. He personally holds 524 U.S. patents. Starting with the development of Polaroid filters to stop the harsh reflection of automobile headlights, Land moved on to nonglare Polaroid sunglasses and World War II antiaircraft goggles...
...negative and positive print. The film and paper could be separated after 60 sec. to reveal the picture. During the 1950s and 1960s, the wizard of light turned out a steady stream of new cameras, faster developing films and color films. During its go-go Wall Street era, Polaroid became the epitome of a glamour stock. A $1,000 investment in the company in 1938 was worth more than $4 million at its peak...
That year Polaroid brought out the revolutionary SX-70, the coat-pocket-size folding fully automatic single-lens reflex camera; it popped out film that developed sharp color prints while one looked at them. After some initial start-up problems with the SX-70, the mass-market One-Step and Pronto models were smash successes. In 1978 the company was manufacturing 30,000 OneSteps a day. Even after Eastman Kodak finally entered the instant-photo field in 1976, Polaroid roared forward, always one inspirational idea ahead of the competition...
During those heady years, Polaroid's unique management style seemed part of its chemistry for success. The product, not the marketing, was the thing. Land, a shy and reclusive scientist more at ease in his lab than with salesmen, believed that his new inventions would create their own success. Polaroid considered market research a "waste of money." Company headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., was dominated by scientists and was often called the city's third university-after Harvard and M.I.T...