Main entry:

West, Nancy Martha, 1963-

Title & Author:

Kodak and the lens of nostalgia / Nancy Martha West.

Publication:

Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 2000.

Description:

xviii, 242 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm.

Series:

Cultural frames, framing culture

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-236) and index.
1. A short history of Kodak advertising, 1888-1932 -- 2. "Vacation days are Kodak days" : modern leisure and the new amateur photographer in advertising -- 3. "Operated by any school boy or girl" : the marketing of the Brownie camera -- 4. "Proudly displayed by wearers of chic ensembles" : vanity cameras, Kodak girls, and the culture of female fashion -- 5. "Kodak knows no dark days" : the disavowal of death in snapshot photography and advertising -- 6. "Let Kodak keep the story" : narrative, memory, and the selling of the autographic camera during World War I -- Coda : Kodak's death campaign.

Summary:

Publisher Fact Sheet 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 & 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 & marketing strategies, including the "Kodak Girl," the momentous invention of the Brownie camera in 1900, the "Story Campaign" during World War 1, & 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 & 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, & 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 & the Lens of Nostalgia vividly illustrates the fundamental changes in American culture & the function of memory in the formative years of the twentieth century.

Resources:
Book review (H-Net)

ISBN:

0813919584 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780813919584 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0813919592 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780813919591 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Eastman Kodak Company.
Advertising Photographic apparatus Psychological aspects History.
Nostalgia.
Nostalgie.
Fotoapparatuur.
Reclamecampagnes.
Advertising Photographers Psychological aspects.
Advertising Photographic equipment Psychological aspects History.

Form/genre:

History.

Added entries:

Cultural frames, framing culture.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 236056
Call No.: BIB 165897
Status: Available