George Eastman Museum

Listen for a moment as you come up the drive. East Avenue traffic fades behind you, and the gravel softens your footsteps. In front of you stands a broad, pale mansion with tall white columns and rows of dark-framed windows. It looks like the home of a wealthy family, and that is exactly what it was. Today it is also one of the oldest museums in the world devoted to photography and film. You are standing at the George Eastman Museum.

The man who lived here changed how ordinary people remember their lives. George Eastman grew up in modest circumstances. As a young bank clerk in Rochester, he became fascinated by photography. In those days, taking a picture meant heavy equipment, glass plates and messy chemicals. Eastman wanted to make it simple. He experimented at night, often in his mother's kitchen, and over time he built the company that became Eastman Kodak.

Here is the first surprise. The word Kodak does not come from any language. Eastman invented it. He wanted a name that was short, easy to say, and hard to misspell. He was especially fond of the letter K, which he thought sounded strong and decisive. So he started and ended the name with it. The result was a word that people could pronounce almost anywhere in the world.

In 1888, his company released a small box camera loaded with enough film for about a hundred pictures. When the roll was finished, the owner sent the whole camera back to the factory. The pictures were developed, and the camera came home reloaded. The advertising slogan was famous for its simplicity — "You press the button, we do the rest." With that idea, photography moved out of the studio and into everyday life.

The success made Eastman very rich, and in the early twentieth century he built this house. It is in the Colonial Revival style, an American style that borrows the columns, symmetry and calm proportions of the colonial era. But behind the traditional front, the house was modern for its time. It had its own electrical systems, telephones and an internal network of conveniences. Eastman lived here for the rest of his life. The house is now a National Historic Landmark.

When you step inside, notice the feeling of the rooms. The wood is warm and polished. The ceilings are high, and the light comes in softly through tall windows. Much of the house has been restored to show how it looked when Eastman lived here. Look for the period furniture, the carpets and the framed photographs. The rooms feel lived in, not frozen.

Now for the second surprise. Eastman loved music, and he had a large pipe organ built into the house. He arranged for an organist to play for him in the mornings, so he could eat breakfast with live music filling the rooms. Music mattered to him far beyond this house. He gave large sums of money to found the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, which remains one of the respected music schools in the United States.

Walk toward the conservatory, a bright room full of plants and glass. Many visitors stop here in surprise. On the wall hangs the head of an elephant. It is a replica, made to recall Eastman's travels in Africa, where he went on safari. To modern eyes it can feel strange, even uncomfortable, among the green leaves. But it is an honest reminder of the tastes and adventures of a wealthy man in the early twentieth century.

Outside, the gardens deserve slow attention. They have been carefully restored, and in the warmer months they fill with color and the smell of cut grass and flowers. There are terraces, clipped hedges and quiet corners where the sound of the street almost disappears. If you visit on a sunny day, the light falls across the stone paths and the back of the house in a way that photographers clearly enjoy.

Eastman died here in 1932. His death was a sad end to a very full life, and he left much of his fortune to education, health care and the arts in Rochester and beyond. After his death, the house passed to the University of Rochester for a time. Then, in the late 1940s, it opened as a museum of photography. It became a home for the very art and technology that Eastman had helped to spread.

The collections today are enormous. They include millions of photographs, from the earliest experiments of the nineteenth century to contemporary work. They also hold historic cameras and equipment, letters and books. Look for the cases of old cameras in the galleries. You can follow the change from big wooden boxes on stands to small cameras that fit easily in one hand. It is a quiet lesson in how technology shrinks over time.

Film is the other great part of this museum. The moving image collection is one of the major film archives in the country. It includes rare prints on nitrate film, an early film material that can burn very easily and must be stored with great care. The museum runs a school for film preservation, where students learn to save and restore old movies. In the Dryden Theatre, on the museum grounds, audiences can still watch films projected the old way, on real film, with the flicker and grain of the original.

Before you leave, stand for a moment in front of the house again. Think of all the family pictures in albums and on phones around the world. Many of them trace back, in some small way, to an idea that grew in this city. Listen to the gravel under your feet, and look at the windows catching the light. Then, if you have a camera with you, take one picture here — and remember that someone once made that simple act possible.