Historedia
Episode 2 of 2

Camera Patent Issuance

When
September 1888
Where
Rochester, New York
Part of
George Eastman registers the Kodak trademark and roll-film camera patent

U.S. patent 388,850 for the roll-film camera was filed in March 1888 and issued in September 1888.

Eastman patented and released the Kodak camera in 1888. The separation of photo-taking from film development was novel, making photography more accessible to amateurs. The camera was immediately popular, causing Eastman to struggle to meet orders by August 1888.

Sources

  1. George Eastman Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-08

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.