Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia

Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia
Author :
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Total Pages : 284
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0813919592
ISBN-13 : 9780813919591
Rating : 4/5 (92 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia by : Nancy Martha West

Download or read book Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia written by Nancy Martha West and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advertising campaigns launched by Kodak in the early years of snapshot photography stand at the center of a shift in American domestic life that goes deeper than technological innovations in cameras and film. Before the advent of Kodak advertising in 1888, writes Nancy Martha West, Americans were much more willing to allow sorrow into the space of the domestic photograph, as evidenced by the popularity of postmortem photography in the mid-nineteenth century. Through the taking of snapshots, Kodak taught Americans to see their experiences as objects of nostalgia, to arrange their lives in such a way that painful or unpleasant aspects were systematically erased. West looks at a wide assortment of Kodak's most popular inventions and marketing strategies, including the "Kodak Girl," the momentous invention of the Brownie camera in 1900, the "Story Campaign" during World War I, and even the Vanity Kodak Ensemble, a camera introduced in 1926 that came fully equipped with lipstick. At the beginning of its campaign, Kodak advertising primarily sold the fun of taking pictures. Ads from this period celebrate the sheer pleasure of snapshot photography--the delight of handling a diminutive camera, of not worrying about developing and printing, of capturing subjects in candid moments. But after 1900, a crucial shift began to take place in the company's marketing strategy. The preservation of domestic memories became Kodak's most important mission. With the introduction of the Brownie camera at the turn of the century, the importance of home began to replace leisure activity as the subject of ads, and at the end of World War I, Americans seemed desperately to need photographs to confirm familial unity. By 1932, Kodak had become so intoxicated with the power of its own marketing that it came up with the most bizarre idea of all, the "Death Campaign." Initiated but never published, this campaign based on pictures of dead loved ones brought Kodak advertising full circle. Having launched one of the most successful campaigns in advertising history, the company did not seem to notice that selling a painful subject might be more difficult than selling momentary pleasure or nostalgia. Enhanced with over 50 reproductions of the ads themselves, 16 of them in color, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia vividly illustrates the fundamental changes in American culture and the function of memory in the formative years of the twentieth century.


Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia Related Books

Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia
Language: en
Pages: 284
Authors: Nancy Martha West
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The advertising campaigns launched by Kodak in the early years of snapshot photography stand at the center of a shift in American domestic life that goes deeper
Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia
Language: en
Pages: 242
Authors: Nancy Martha West
Categories: Photography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The advertising campaigns launched by Kodak in the early years of snapshot photography stand at the center of a shift in American domestic life that goes deeper
A Spectacular Secret
Language: en
Pages: 429
Authors: Jacqueline Goldsby
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-09-15 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This incisive study takes on one of the grimmest secrets in America's national lifeā€”the history of lynching and, more generally, the public punishment of Afri
Controlling Time and Shaping the Self
Language: en
Pages: 559
Authors:
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-06-22 - Publisher: BRILL

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores new questions and approaches to the rise of autobiographical writing since the early modern period. What motivated more and more men and wome
The Camera Does the Rest
Language: en
Pages: 323
Authors: Peter Buse
Categories: Art
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What makes Polaroid photography stand out? Since its invention by Edwin Land in 1947, how has it crept into our common culture in the ways we witness today? Wri