The Rise, the Fall, and Fracture of an American Icon - Eastman Kodak

Founded in 1888 by George Eastman, Eastman Kodak transformed photography by introducing a small, easy-to-use camera loaded with roll film. Its famous slogan, “You press the button, we do the rest,” captured the company’s revolutionary mission: making photography accessible to everyday people rather than just professionals. Incorporated as the Eastman Kodak Company of New York in 1892, the business expanded quickly, establishing a New Jersey–based holding corporation in 1901. These two entities operated simultaneously until 1936, when the New York corporation was dissolved and its assets transferred to the New Jersey structure that would define Kodak for decades. Built on mass production, chemical manufacturing, and vertical integration, Kodak controlled every step of the photographic process—from film emulsions to darkroom chemicals to paper and retail labs—creating one of the most profitable monopolies in American industrial history.

Kodak’s influence accelerated dramatically in the early and mid-20th century, driven by a series of groundbreaking film emulsions. In 1900, the Brownie camera and inexpensive roll film brought snapshot photography to households worldwide. By the 1930s, Kodak was not just shaping the medium—it was defining the visual culture of the century. In 1935, after years of research by Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky Jr., Kodak introduced Kodachrome, the first commercially successful subtractive color film. Renowned for its rich saturation, archival stability, and unique three-layer dye-coupler process, Kodachrome became the film of the American century. It was followed in 1936 by Super XX, a high-speed black-and-white emulsion that became a staple for midcentury photojournalism.

In 1942, Kodak transformed color photography again with Kodacolor, the world’s first consumer-friendly color negative film, making home color prints widely accessible. Kodacolor became the backbone of the color-negative ecosystem, evolving through Kodacolor II (1972), Kodacolor VR (1982), and eventually the Gold, Max, and ColorPlus films that documented everyday life from the 1950s through the early 2000s. Alongside these consumer stocks, Kodak developed the emulsions that shaped professional and editorial photography: Ektachrome (1946), which offered faster processing and cleaner color than Kodachrome; Tri-X (1954), whose speed, tonality, and grain became iconic; and later T-Max (1986), which introduced tabular-grain technology for sharper detail and finer grain.

Kodak’s material innovations extended far beyond consumer imaging. During World War II, the company operated the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for the Manhattan Project and supplied high-resolution films for aerial reconnaissance. Its technical expertise carried into the space age: in 1966, Kodak film recorded the first photograph of Earth from deep space, and Kodak-designed systems traveled with Apollo 11 astronauts to the surface of the moon. By the 1970s, Kodak controlled nearly 90% of U.S. film sales and 85% of camera sales, employing more than 145,000 people globally. It was not only a company—it was the infrastructure of photography itself.

Ironically, Kodak invented the technology that would later destabilize it. In 1975, engineer Steve Sasson built the world’s first digital camera, a crude 0.01-megapixel prototype that saved images to cassette tape. Kodak patented digital photography in 1978 and introduced the first digital SLR in 1991. Yet executives feared digital cameras would cannibalize their highly profitable film division. While Kodak continued advancing analog emulsions—releasing Ektar(1989, reformulated in 2008), Portra (1998), and new generations of T-Max—the company failed to pivot its business model. Meanwhile, competitors like Canon, Sony, and Nikon embraced digital technologies. Kodak tried to straddle both markets, maintaining film profits while slowly entering the digital consumer space. This hesitation proved catastrophic. By the early 2000s, digital imaging dominated, and Kodak’s revenue collapsed.

In 2012, facing mounting losses and massive pension obligations, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the center was a staggering $2.8 billion liability owed to the company’s United Kingdom pension fund. To resolve the debt, Kodak underwent one of the most consequential restructurings in its history. In 2013, the unified Kodak identity fractured permanently into two fully independent companies.

Eastman Kodak Company—the original American corporation—retained the industrial and manufacturing divisions, including the Rochester, New York factories that produce every Kodak film emulsion, from Portra, Ektar, Tri-X, T-Max, and Ektachrome to motion-picture stocks like Vision3 and Double-X.

Kodak Alaris, a newly created British entity owned by the UK pension fund, acquired the consumer-facing operations: kiosks, scanners, retail photo printing, and global distribution rights for consumer films including the modern descendants of Kodacolor—Gold 200, Ultramax 400, and ColorPlus. The split created a permanent divide:
Eastman Kodak manufactures the film; Kodak Alaris sells the film.

After the separation, Eastman Kodak focused on industrial print systems, specialty chemicals, and advanced materials while maintaining motion-picture and photographic film production. The company returned briefly to public attention in 2020 when a proposed $765 million U.S. government loan planned to repurpose Kodak’s chemical facilities for pharmaceutical production during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kodak’s stock surged over 1,000%, but the deal collapsed under regulatory scrutiny of executive stock trades. Although investigators later cleared the company, the loan never materialized, and Kodak redirected its chemical expertise toward coating technologies, including materials for electric vehicle batteries.

Meanwhile, Kodak Alaris continued expanding global film distribution during a worldwide resurgence in analog photography. The company oversaw the return of Ektachrome E100 in 2018, new formats of Gold and Ultramax, and the continued availability of the full Kodak still-photography lineup. In August 2024, ownership changed again when the UK Pension Protection Fund sold Kodak Alaris to Kingswood Capital Management, a Los Angeles–based private equity firm. The transition further separated the consumer brand from Eastman Kodak, even as both companies remained tightly interdependent: every Kodak film—whether Portra or Gold—is still manufactured in Rochester and then sold globally through Kodak Alaris.

Today, the Kodak name lives across two separate corporate worlds. Eastman Kodak Company, based in Rochester, continues to produce film—Tri-X, T-Max, Portra, Ektar, Ektachrome, Vision3—and develop industrial imaging and materials technologies. Kodak Alaris, now privately owned in the UK, manages the consumer-facing brand, global distribution network, retail printing systems, and the “Kodak Moments” identity. What was once a singular American monopoly is now a divided legacy—split between manufacturer and marketer, between chemistry and consumer experience, between American industry and global private equity.

Kodak remains one of the clearest lessons in business history:
the company that invented digital photography ultimately fractured under the weight of the future it created. Photography didn’t start with a camera. It started with an idea — that a moment could be held still. George Eastman believed that idea belonged to everyone, not just chemists in darkrooms. So in 1888, he built a small, simple box, loaded it with roll film, and told the world, “You press the button, we do the rest.”

That sentence was more than a slogan; it was an invitation into a new way of seeing. Everyday life could finally be documented by the people living it. By 1892, Eastman Kodak Company of New York was formalized, and as its global shadow expanded, a New Jersey holding corporation followed in 1901. These two entities moved in parallel until 1936, when the New York arm dissolved into the New Jersey structure — a corporate architecture built for scale, chemistry, and total control. Kodak didn’t just make film; it owned the photographic process from emulsion to print, from paper to processing, from consumer to professional.

And in those early decades, Kodak wasn’t just manufacturing products. It was building what would soon be known as the Kodak Moment — a cultural shorthand for the kind of memory that felt worth keeping. A wedding kiss. A child’s first steps. A family trip. A sunrise. The brand became synonymous with emotion, with the small human details that we fear time will erase.

The Century of Film

Kodak’s emulsions didn’t just record the 20th century — they helped define it. In 1900, the Brownie camera and its simple roll films made snapshot photography global. But the company’s true breakthrough arrived in 1935 with Kodachrome, created by Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky Jr. Kodachrome was impossibly rich: deep reds, sharp blues, greens that felt alive. It was the color of entire generations — national parks, jazz clubs, family road trips, early fashion, and America itself.

A year later came Super XX, the black-and-white workhorse of midcentury reportage. And in 1942, Kodak introduced Kodacolor, the world’s first consumer color negative film. Unlike Kodachrome, Kodacolor could be processed more easily, printed more widely, and adapted to the everyday world. That one emulsion evolved into Kodacolor II (1972), Kodacolor VR (1982), and ultimately the Kodak Gold, Max, and ColorPlus families — the look of the grocery store film aisle for decades, the films that recorded birthday cakes and Christmas mornings and school portraits.

Meanwhile, the professional world was shaped by emulsions with their own personalities. Ektachrome (1946) gave photographers a faster, more flexible slide film. Tri-X (1954) became legend: grainy, fast, honest — the film of civil rights marches, street corners, smoky clubs, and breaking news. Later, the tabular-grain T-Max series (1986) pushed sharpness and precision into a new era. And in 1989 came Ektar, a vivid, contrast-heavy stock that would be reborn in 2008 for a new generation.

At its height in the 1970s, Kodak was not just dominant — it was inevitable. The company controlled nearly 90% of the U.S. film market and 85% of camera sales. One hundred forty-five thousand people around the world worked under its name. Its products documented wars, weddings, revolutions, and moon landings. Kodak film recorded the first photograph of Earth from deep space in 1966, and Kodak-built systems traveled with Apollo 11 astronauts to the lunar surface. The company had become the memory bank of the modern world.

The Invention That Undid Everything

But even at its peak, Kodak was quietly building the technology that would unravel it. In 1975, engineer Steve Sasson created the first digital camera — a bulky, futuristic box that recorded 0.01-megapixel images to a cassette tape. Kodak patented the idea in 1978, and by 1991 it had built the first digital SLR.

But executives hesitated. Digital posed a threat to Kodak’s most profitable empire: film. So Kodak kept refining its emulsions — Portra in 1998, a reformulated Ektar in 2008, new generations of T-Max — while moving cautiously into digital consumer products. Canon, Nikon, and Sony surged ahead. Kodak inched forward. And the world changed faster than the company was willing to believe.

By the early 2000s, digital photography had swallowed the market. Kodak’s revenue collapsed. In 2012, burdened by losses and an enormous pension obligation, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Fracture: One Name, Two Companies

The heart of the bankruptcy was a staggering $2.8 billion liability to Kodak’s U.K. pension fund. To survive, Kodak had to split itself apart.

In 2013, the once-unified company fractured into two entirely separate worlds:

Eastman Kodak Company (United States):
– Retained the industrial and manufacturing divisions
– Kept the Rochester factories where all Kodak film is still made today
– Continues to produce Tri-X, T-Max, Portra, Ektar, Ektachrome, Vision3, Double-X, and all motion-picture coatings

Kodak Alaris (United Kingdom):
– Took the global consumer-facing business: film distribution, retail kiosks, scanners, photo printing systems
– Managed the branding and marketing of consumer films like Gold, Ultramax, ColorPlus, and the modern Kodacolor lineage
– Became the global storefront for a brand whose factories it did not own

The separation was permanent. The chemistry stayed in Rochester. The consumer identity moved overseas.
Eastman Kodak makes the film; Kodak Alaris sells the film.

In the years that followed, Eastman Kodak leaned into industrial print systems, chemicals, and advanced materials. The company briefly reentered public conversation in 2020 when a proposed $765 million U.S. government loan aimed to convert Kodak’s chemical facilities for pharmaceutical production during COVID-19. Stocks soared more than 1,000% overnight before the deal collapsed under regulatory scrutiny. Though cleared of wrongdoing, Kodak never received the loan and pivoted instead toward new coating technologies, including materials for battery manufacturing.

Kodak Alaris, meanwhile, found itself riding a wave no one predicted: a global film resurgence. Young photographers, new artists, and entire online communities rediscovered analog.
Ektachrome E100 returned in 2018. Gold and Ultramax expanded into new formats. Film fridges around the world filled back up.

In August 2024, the U.K. Pension Protection Fund sold Kodak Alaris to Kingswood Capital Management, a Los Angeles private equity firm — another chapter in a story that had already been split in two.

What remains:

What’s left of Kodak is no longer the towering monopoly it once was — but maybe that’s exactly why its survival matters. After the split, for more than a decade, Eastman Kodak stayed mostly behind the curtain, making the emulsions and chemistry while Kodak Alaris carried the consumer-facing torch. But something subtle and important has shifted in the last few years: Eastman Kodak is back in the film business — publicly, proudly, directly.

For the first time since the fracture, the Rochester company isn’t just coating film; it’s selling and distributing it under its own name again. And the timing couldn’t be better. Film photography is no longer a nostalgic afterthought — it’s a global resurgence of people hungry for texture, for imperfection, for the slow craft of making images that can’t be swiped away.

Eastman Kodak’s new Kodacolor 100 and Kodacolor 200 mark a return to one of the most iconic names in color photography — a name that once defined the everyday American snapshot. These new stocks feel like a quiet promise: that film still has places to go. Alongside them comes a sharpened, contemporary rebrand of Kodak’s most beloved consumer options: Kodak Gold 200 and UltraMax 400, refreshed not just in packaging but in purpose. They signal something bigger — that Eastman Kodak isn’t merely preserving its history; it’s participating in its future.

For the film world, this is more than corporate logistics. It’s a sign of life. A sign of confidence. A sign that the company that once told the world to capture every fleeting joy — “Take a Kodak Moment” — still believes in the medium enough to invest in it again. The revival isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s steady, careful, and rooted in a craft that has always outlived the predictions of its death.

What remains, then, is not a relic — but a pulse. A slow-burning commitment to film in a world that’s learning to appreciate slowness again.