The George Eastman House

Up the grand staircase, one can find the restored bedroom of his mother, Maria.

The house had many innovative modern conveniences: an electrical generator, a telephone system with twenty-one stations, a built-in vacuum cleaning system, a central clock network, an elevator, and a pipe organ. The property also had a working farm, formal gardens, greenhouses, stables, barns, and pastures.

George Eastman never married. He was in awe of his mother and could not do enough for her while she lived, and was overwhelmed by her death. Eastman bequeathed most of his assets to the University of Rochester. The mission of the museum is “to collect, preserve, study, and exhibit photographic and cinematic objects and related technology from the inception of each medium to the present.”

In his later years, he suffered from a disorder that affected his spine and was often in pain. On March 14, 1932, he fatally shot himself, leaving a note that read, “To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?”

His legacy is well-presented, and his contributions to the film and photography world are vast. People are curious about why he named his camera, Kodak. Truth is, he made it up, believing it would be hard to forget and not easily mispronounced. He made so much money from his inventions, patents, and administration of the company, that he founded his own bank, the Eastman Trust and Savings. It is a wonderful museum with so much to see and admire of the man.