He was a high school dropout who teachers described as "not especially gifted", but in founding Kodak, George Eastman went on to make photography accessible to all and become one of the world's most generous philanthropists.
Eastman had to leave school and become the family breadwinner aged 14 when his father died. Working as an office boy for an insurer, he was paid $3 a week.
A decade later, Eastman was planning a holiday to the Dominican Republic and decided to buy a camera to record it. It was as big as a microwave and required a heavy tripod plus a tent to spread pictures on glass plates before exposing them.
With chemicals, glass tanks, a heavy plate holder, and a jug of water, Eastman described the kit as "a pack-horse load".
He never made it on holiday, but grew obsessed with the idea of making photography simpler.
By 1880 Eastman had invented a dry plate formula, and patented a machine for preparing large numbers of plates. He named his company Kodak, apparently because he thought the click of a camera sounded like "dak".
It was in February 1900 that Eastman's Brownie box camera first went on the sale.
He coined the slogan: "You press the button, we do the rest."
Sales boomed, and Kodak was a huge advertiser. The word "Kodak" was one of the first electric signs to shine out on Trafalgar Square.
From the firm's Rochester, New York headquarters, Eastman also helped change pay packets. His "wage dividend" saw Kodak pay out results-based rewards to staff.
He became one of the US's biggest philanthropists, giving away more than $100 million to charities, universities and medical clinics.
On March 14, 1932, after two years of suffering from a degenerative disorder, Eastman died by suicide with a single gunshot to the heart.
He left a note which read: "To my friends, my work is done. Why wait?"
