No superlative can adequately describe the impact George Eastman made to the world of photography, but here is a good approximation: at the time of his passing in 1932, his $95 million net worth was about 1/600th of the total national GDP. A Rockefeller he wasn’t, but still an amazing achievement for a man who grew up on a farm and left school early to help his family. Eastman continued refining current photography techniques in his spare time, creating what would become the standard of photography for most of the following century.

On this day, September 4, George Eastman patented his roll-film camera and registered for trademark the name of his company, “Kodak.”

The photographic method of the time involved large, wet glass plates — a cumbersome that Eastman first fixed by creating dry-plate technology. The second part was to get rid of glass altogether, and Eastman had a hard time with using paper. Then he hit on the idea of using cellulose, a material just as flexible as paper but which provided a much clearer photo. As for the name “Kodak”, Eastman said it had no special significance: “I devised the name myself. The letter ‘K’ had been a favorite with me — it seems a strong, incisive sort of letter. It became a question of trying out a great number of combinations of letters that made words starting and ending with ‘K.’ The word ‘Kodak’ is the result.”