- 5/21/2025
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00:00and I think that's a great
00:02opportunity to do something
00:04different.
04:12One summer night in Connecticut,
04:14on a back road in the deep dark,
04:16two vehicles were speeding
04:18towards disaster.
04:24The glare from the headlights was so blinding
04:26there was barely time to swerve.
04:32A crash would have been fatal,
04:34but in one car,
04:36one passenger was more interested in the physics
04:38of what had just transpired
04:40than the danger.
04:42His name was
04:44Edwin Land,
04:46and he was 14 years old.
04:50Edwin Land was born in Connecticut
04:52in 1909.
04:54He didn't come from a family of intellectuals.
04:56His father was a scrap metal dealer.
04:58Land, though, was, you know,
05:00the classic image of the, like,
05:02overachieving brainy kid.
05:04You're talking about the World War I era.
05:06Obviously, there were no computers
05:08Entertainment really consisted
05:10of things like the kaleidoscope,
05:12and he used to love those things.
05:14He became fascinated with optics,
05:16and this is as a very young boy.
05:18By the time he was a senior in high school,
05:20his science teacher confessed
05:22that he had nothing left to teach him.
05:24So at the age of 17,
05:26Land enrolled at Harvard,
05:28only to drop out after a single semester.
05:30He's bored with Harvard.
05:32He's bored with school.
05:34He's bored with the normal physics courses.
05:36He wasn't shy of doing things
05:38in an unorthodox manner,
05:40and dropping out of Harvard,
05:42I mean, that seems like
05:44such a crazy thing to do.
05:46In 1927, Land moved to New York City,
05:48where he hoped to develop
05:50a filter to solve the problem
05:52of headlight glare.
05:54And whenever the young inventor needed help,
05:56he enlisted his girlfriend,
05:58Terry Maislin.
06:00Late at night,
06:02the pair would sneak into
06:04a laboratory at Columbia University
06:06to conduct experiments
06:08with different glare-reducing materials.
06:10Land described it as
06:12a transient, violent need to create.
06:14The urge was so strong,
06:16he explained,
06:18you have a feeling
06:20of almost divine guidance.
06:22The solution to the glare problem
06:24on America's roads, Land now believed,
06:26lay in a physics phenomenon
06:28known as polarization.
06:30I will preface this
06:32by saying this is
06:34a very coarse approximation
06:36of the science,
06:38but light rays coming at you
06:40are actually quite scattered.
06:42It is evident that water waves
06:44have an up-and-down motion
06:46as well as a direction of travel,
06:48and so it is with light waves.
06:50A polarizing filter,
06:52it has at the microscopic level slats.
06:54Some light comes in,
06:56some light doesn't come in.
06:58You have one polarizing filter,
07:00second one goes behind it,
07:02doesn't change the color much,
07:04turn it 90 degrees,
07:06and it goes to black.
07:08It was not until the invention
07:10of a synthetic polarizing material
07:12by the scientist Edwin H. Land
07:14that polarized light
07:16could be put to work
07:18outside the laboratory.
07:20By 1932, Land had founded
07:22his own lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts
07:24to refine the manufacturing
07:26of thin plastic polarized sheets.
07:28Later, it had become
07:30a proper company, Polaroid.
07:32Land's new polarizing film
07:34worked perfectly
07:36to reduce headlight glare,
07:38but as it turned out,
07:40Detroit would never go for it.
07:42The automotive industry decided
07:44that too much work was required
07:46in order to put special films
07:48on the headlights and then also
07:50retrofit all the other automobiles,
07:52so they weren't really interested.
07:54It was a great idea
07:56and it worked out 80 years later.
07:58Land was undeterred.
08:00He had already dreamed up
08:02other uses for his plastic polarizers.
08:04Polaroid light control materials
08:06will affect the lives
08:08of increasing millions
08:10in the new world ahead.
08:12He used it to make Polaroid sunglasses,
08:14camera lenses.
08:16He made the polarizing films
08:18that went into 3-D glasses,
08:20special desk lamps that didn't have glare.
08:22In the 1930s, Polaroid got licensed
08:24to make a window for a rail car.
08:28If the sun is directly on you,
08:30you can rotate the inner window pane
08:32and cut down the incoming light.
08:34So Land is looking at every way
08:36that he can use this product.
08:38The war starts.
08:40The armies and the military
08:42are trying to find every advantage
08:44that they can have,
08:46and one of them is to block light.
08:48It very quickly became clear
08:50during the Second World War
08:52that there was a need for pilots.
08:54The war effort was a big boost to Polaroid.
08:56The company grew like crazy during the war.
08:58But Land could see
09:00that the war was not going to last forever.
09:02And he knew that when those contracts came to end
09:04that he was going to have to shrink way down again,
09:06and he didn't like that idea.
09:08So he was trying to figure out,
09:10you know, what's the future going to be for my company?
09:12We're going to have to do something else,
09:14and he was sort of fishing
09:16for what that other thing was.
09:18By December 1946,
09:20with the war over
09:22and peace now at hand,
09:24Polaroid's reckoning had arrived at last.
09:26Land was young,
09:28rich, and successful.
09:30And the truth was,
09:32he could now take on whatever challenge
09:34he damn well pleased.
09:36On stage in a small rented movie theater,
09:38he admitted to his employees
09:40that he already had a secret project
09:42in the works.
09:44Using all of our scientific background,
09:46we are going to drill us
09:48into this new wild dream.
09:50But for now,
09:52it was still the stuff of fantasy.
09:54And he could say no more.
10:08The invention of photography
10:10allowed people in ways
10:12that weren't possible before
10:14to document their lives
10:16and to own something,
10:18to hold something.
10:20Photography is incredibly important
10:22for us to be able to keep records,
10:24to tell our own history,
10:26for us to feel that we're alive.
10:28Rarely do you take pictures
10:30of things you hate.
10:32It's always things you love,
10:34places you love, people you love,
10:36things you want to remember.
10:38Even to this day,
10:40as we take our selfies,
10:42they really are about capturing that moment
10:44that that moment is going to live on.
10:48Land had once described photography
10:50as humanity's greatest invention.
10:52He believed that it transcended
10:54even science itself.
10:56I can put my eye to that finder
10:58and press the button,
11:00and then I have united once more
11:02the strange aggregation
11:04of cells that we are
11:06with the solid and beautiful
11:08world around us.
11:10To Land,
11:12all the world was a puzzle.
11:14Looked at the right way,
11:16even a broken sink at home
11:18was a great mystery.
11:20Terry, who'd become his wife
11:22back in 1929, would remember,
11:24it's the bane of my existence.
11:26As soon as he understands it,
11:28he wants somebody else
11:30to do it.
11:32Now, Land's newest passion
11:34was photography,
11:36and he believed it had one big problem.
11:38People were just too far
11:40removed from its magic.
11:42If we look at early photography,
11:44we had heavy equipment.
11:46You've got chemicals,
11:48tents, tripods,
11:50you've got a whole lot of stuff
11:52that you need to carry to take one picture.
11:54You would take a picture,
11:56you'd have the negative,
11:58you'd have to take the negative
12:00in the dark out of your camera,
12:02you'd have to put it through
12:04a series of beds,
12:06specific temperatures,
12:08develop that negative.
12:10Once the negative was dry,
12:12you could superimpose it
12:14on a piece of photographic paper.
12:16Then you had to shine light
12:18through that paper,
12:20and then, you know,
12:22hours later, you would see
12:24your picture.
12:26However, in the days of film,
12:28really, the way most people
12:30made a picture was,
12:32you shot your piece of film,
12:34you took a photo drop,
12:36you probably needed
12:38the better part of a week.
12:40Land was convinced
12:42that the whole process
12:44could be reinvented.
12:46His dream was to create
12:48a camera that could give
12:50people their photographs
12:52on the spot, instantly.
12:54The holy grail for Land
12:56is for us to have
12:58that dark room in our hands.
13:00You press the button,
13:02and you get a picture.
13:04In 1970,
13:06and the first member of the team
13:08was a brilliant 24-year-old
13:10researcher named Eudoxia Mueller.
13:12It all started, she remembered,
13:14with a phone call into my little lab.
13:16Do the following experiment,
13:18Land had said.
13:20Land's concept was to use
13:22what's known as a diffusion
13:24transfer process.
13:26You would take a normal negative,
13:28like you would have in a normal camera,
13:30and a piece of photographic paper.
13:32Essentially, the negative image
13:34would transfer
13:36and create a print.
13:38Easier said than done.
13:40Through nonstop experimentation,
13:42Mueller managed to obtain
13:44Polaroid's first-ever instant photograph.
13:46Land was delighted
13:48with the rather pale brown image,
13:50Mueller recalled.
13:52He transmitted such enthusiasm
13:54that it was contagious.
13:56It looked bad.
13:58It was kind of yellow-brown
14:00and not very good, but it was a picture.
14:02It was an exciting beginning,
14:04and now they could start
14:06to refine everything
14:08from the chemistry
14:10to the engineering.
14:12Land himself sat for hundreds
14:14of test portraits,
14:16and he'd pull any member
14:18of his growing team into the lab
14:20to bear witness to the impossible
14:22suddenly being made real,
14:24and to take test portraits
14:27By February 1947,
14:30the technology was still
14:32just a prototype,
14:34but Land couldn't keep
14:36his new invention secret
14:38from the world any longer.
14:40The venue was a conference
14:42of the Optical Society of America
14:44at the Hotel Pennsylvania
14:46in Manhattan.
14:48He went to a conference,
14:50a science conference.
14:52It is not the most exciting
14:54of conferences.
14:56But he also knew enough
14:58to invite the press
15:00and show off this new invention.
15:02They had a large format,
15:048x10 camera rigged up
15:06with this new film in it.
15:08He had a picture taken of himself.
15:10Comes out of the camera,
15:12they put it through
15:14a processing rig,
15:16you know, it's all still experimental,
15:18so it goes through the rollers,
15:20and he peels it back.
15:22People lost it.
15:24You can just imagine
15:26how shocking and magical
15:28that moment must have been.
15:30All the press photographers,
15:32they're watching,
15:34they know all the process,
15:36and they just witnessed
15:38that happening
15:40in a minute and a half.
15:42I mean, it was truly revolutionary
15:44in the real sense of the word.
15:46It was incredible.
15:48The Times reporter in the back
15:50had been sort of
15:52half paying attention
15:54and came up and said,
15:56do it again,
15:58which he did.
16:00The demonstration was a complete success,
16:02as almost every newspaper
16:04in the country ran the story
16:06of Polaroid's revolutionary new camera.
16:08The New York Times remarked
16:10that there is nothing like this
16:12in the history of photography.
16:14And at the heart of all the articles
16:16was none other than
16:18George Washington himself.
16:20Photography will never again
16:22be the same after today.
16:24And he couldn't have been
16:26more pleased.
16:28The Jordan Marsh department store
16:30was Boston's oldest.
16:32Smack in the middle of downtown,
16:34it was a shopper's paradise,
16:36bigger than Harvard's football stadium,
16:38selling everything from women's lingerie
16:40to the latest fashions and fur.
16:42It was here,
16:44the day after Thanksgiving 1948,
16:46that Land's new camera,
16:48the Model 95,
16:50was to finally make its debut.
16:52They had a first production run
16:54of about 60 cameras,
16:56which sounds so tiny, doesn't it?
16:58Now you would roll it out with a million,
17:00but then it was 60 cameras.
17:02And it was expensive.
17:04It was $89.50.
17:06In today's money, that's about $1,600.
17:08So this was not a cheap piece of equipment.
17:10This was an expensive thing.
17:12But some guy got up there saying,
17:14I want to buy the Polaroid camera.
17:16And the crowd gathered around,
17:18and they took the pictures,
17:20and they started showing this.
17:22And everybody went wild.
17:24As it turned out,
17:26the dawn of instant photography
17:28couldn't have come at a better time.
17:30Across the country,
17:32Americans had fallen completely,
17:34absolutely, and insanely
17:36in love with taking pictures.
17:38By the 1950s,
17:40photography is a global operation.
17:42People buy this desire to take pictures.
17:44People have more leisure time than they had before,
17:46and they have more kids than they had before,
17:48and they want to take pictures of those,
17:50and they wanted to, you know,
17:52document the picnics they went on.
17:54The growing army of amateurs
17:56has built photography
17:58into the world's most popular hobby.
18:00In the United States alone,
18:02the photographic industry
18:04now earns a net profit
18:06of about $1 billion a year.
18:08And Polaroid came along
18:10Polaroid was a company in upstate New York,
18:12founded back in the 1880s
18:14by a high school dropout.
18:16His name was George Eastman,
18:18and the business he created
18:20was known as Kodak.
18:22Kodak is huge.
18:24Eastman becomes one of the richest men in the world.
18:26Tens of thousands of employees
18:28at a campus called Kodak Park
18:30that is just this giant complex of buildings.
18:32To most people around the country,
18:34Kodak meant camera,
18:36but it was their film
18:38that had driven the company's success.
18:40Film is hard to make,
18:42and Kodak was the gold standard for it.
18:44Land had no idea
18:46how to take Polaroid film
18:48from the lab to the marketplace.
18:50Where did he go?
18:52He went to Kodak.
18:54Scientists from the two companies
18:56worked closely together
18:58to turn Polaroid's revolutionary film
19:00into something that could be mass produced.
19:02The saying in Rochester was,
19:04anything that's good for photography
19:06is good for Kodak.
19:08Back in Cambridge,
19:10Land shared with his team
19:12that he was determined
19:14to build something miles better
19:16than the groundbreaking product they already had.
19:18He wanted better film,
19:20faster, completely seamless processing.
19:22And at Polaroid,
19:24the science was far from the only thing
19:26that was revolutionary.
19:28Land included women
19:30in his company
19:32from really early days.
19:34At the time,
19:36there were not a lot of jobs
19:38for women in technology.
19:40He was open to allowing them
19:42to take on major projects
19:44and to use their own intelligence freely.
19:46He basically said,
19:48if you're talented
19:50and you can ask the right questions,
19:52then we have a space for you.
19:54Polaroid was unique,
19:56a place where women could thrive as researchers.
19:58And perhaps no single scientist on staff
20:00embodied Land's inclusive vision
20:02except for one Maroi Morse,
20:04head of black-and-white film research.
20:06She was my boss.
20:08She ran that lab,
20:10and she'd never done anything like this before,
20:12but she was smart as a whip
20:14and creative.
20:16Back at Smith College,
20:18Morse had majored in art history
20:20and had never taken a chemistry course in her life.
20:22But she was an accomplished painter,
20:24an actor,
20:26and excelled in everything she did.
20:28She was an artist
20:30who created the harp.
20:32That's an unusual, interesting character,
20:34and Land wanted unusual,
20:36interesting smart people around him.
20:38And he went out and found them.
20:40As the company grew,
20:42Land became obsessed
20:44with creating a perfect camera.
20:46He believed that the whole world
20:48was waiting for a device
20:50so flawless, so elegant,
20:52and ultimately so simple
20:54that it would change anyone
20:56who used it forever.
20:58I looked forward
21:00to the kind of photography
21:02that would become
21:04part of the human being,
21:06an adjunct to your memory,
21:08something that was
21:10always with you,
21:12so that when you looked
21:14at something, you could
21:16in effect press a button
21:18and have a record
21:20of it forever.
21:22No one believed
21:24the dream more than Edwin Land himself.
21:26He was certain
21:28that his machine would usher
21:30in a brand-new way of life,
21:32and that he only needed
21:34to teach the people how to be ready
21:36for that brave new world.
21:44All right, just like this.
21:46One big smile.
21:48A big smile.
21:50Is that gorgeous?
21:52Pretty terrific camera, isn't it?
21:54Across the country, Americans
21:56were embracing Polaroid's technology.
21:58By 1958,
22:00instant cameras were flying off the shelves,
22:02though the massive size
22:04of Land's research budget
22:06kept any profits razor thin.
22:08But business
22:10was the last thing on Land's mind.
22:12Land was a quintessential scientist.
22:14He didn't really care about money.
22:16He was interested in solving a problem,
22:18in innovation.
22:20He was a scientist first and a businessman second.
22:22He was a scientist in charge,
22:24but it was all a means to an end
22:26of spending time in the lab.
22:28It was really the thrill of the chase
22:30that motivated him,
22:32the scientific thrill of the chase.
22:34In the Polaroid labs,
22:36Land was at the heart of it all,
22:38his eyes on every prototype,
22:40his ideas driving every piece of R&D.
22:42It was perhaps the only place in America
22:44where a picture of a cute kid
22:46wasn't about the child at all.
22:48It was pure science.
22:50But every member of the research staff
22:52should be experimenting constantly
22:54at work
22:56and at home.
22:58Most of my photographs were just
23:00testing.
23:02I took so many pictures
23:04trying to figure out the difference
23:06between this film
23:08when you used it at night
23:10or a cloudy day
23:12or a bright day
23:14or a dull day or a rainy day.
23:16And so it was
23:18a combination of science and art.
23:20And that was the way
23:22Polaroid worked.
23:24It was all a great big experiment.
23:26And not all the researchers
23:28along for the ride were scientists.
23:30Ultimately,
23:32Polaroid's customers were part
23:34of the process too.
23:36But their findings weren't always
23:38what Polaroid wanted to hear.
23:40Over time, they're noticing that
23:42the images that they have are starting to fade.
23:44If you were documenting things
23:46like your kid's birthday party
23:48or your friend's wedding or whatever,
23:50and suddenly these pictures were starting to fade
23:52six months later, that would threaten
23:54the entire existence of this company.
23:56Despite Polaroid's popularity,
23:58Land had always run his business
24:00on innovation and faith,
24:02perpetually putting it one catastrophe
24:04away from collapse.
24:06Now, as neither he nor anyone
24:08else on staff could understand
24:10the roots of the mystery,
24:12he needed a fix, and fast.
24:14Maroi Morse attacked the problem
24:16as hard as Land himself.
24:18By now, their collaboration
24:20had reshaped the company.
24:22Their names linked on some of Polaroid's
24:24biggest patents.
24:26A day is all too short,
24:28Morse would confess to Land.
24:30Just when we've gotten warmed up to our problems,
24:32it's time to quit.
24:34She could keep up with him
24:36in terms of workload
24:38and in terms of her quick mind.
24:40They really understood each other.
24:42They were really close
24:44in a way the two sort of like minds
24:46could be close.
24:48Under immense pressure from their customers,
24:50Land, Morse, and the rest of the team
24:52finally found a temporary solution.
24:54It was a piece
24:56of novel chemistry which
24:58internally they called the coder.
25:00In essence, what they figured out
25:02is what we needed was a coating.
25:04A coating that could be squeegeed on top
25:06to prevent the image
25:08from fading.
25:10Every single pack of Polaroid film
25:12came with a small vial full of
25:14liquid coder, a squeegee,
25:16and intricate instructions.
25:18But perhaps the biggest difference
25:20was that for about 10 minutes,
25:22each and every photograph
25:24was absolutely soaked.
25:26And that in turn
25:28caused people to start to dry
25:30it off. And that's where the shake
25:32comes from. You still
25:34shake your Polaroid picture because it used to be
25:36sopping wet.
25:38Suddenly, instant photography
25:40wasn't so instant,
25:42wasn't so simple, and it certainly
25:44wasn't elegant.
25:46As hard as Polaroid scientists went at the problem,
25:48the temporary solution
25:50would last more than a decade.
25:52For Land, something
25:54had changed. The hunt for
25:56a perfect device was no longer
25:58just about the science.
26:00He'd started to see his cameras differently.
26:02As he put it in a handwritten
26:04letter to all his employees,
26:06Polaroid is on its
26:08way to lead the world,
26:10perhaps even to
26:12save it. He always
26:14thought of the potential of
26:16connecting with people,
26:18how it could help people be their better
26:20selves. He was idealistic that way.
26:22He thought it would draw the world closer
26:24together. But now he started
26:26thinking the more people that have
26:28Polaroid in their hand, the more
26:30impact Polaroid has on
26:32the world. He literally
26:34said, Polaroid photography
26:36can cure rifts
26:38in contemporary life.
26:40That is incredibly powerful
26:42from just a little
26:44camera. He must have
26:46seemed insane when people
26:48were hearing this idea.
26:50He was interested in making
26:52everything better, always better.
26:54And I remember where I was standing,
26:56in his office, and he said,
26:58you can't ever stop
27:00making it better, or it's
27:02going to be worse.
27:06Even if you never owned a Polaroid
27:08camera, you remembered the
27:10jingle.
27:12Barry Manilow
27:14helped immortalize land's newest
27:16and first ever low-cost
27:18camera.
27:22Polaroid started
27:24to speak to a culture that
27:26wasn't being seen or heard.
27:28And that was the youth
27:30in the 1960s.
27:32So they invented this cute little camera
27:34on a string that you could hang
27:36from your wrist called the Swinger.
27:38The year was
27:401965,
27:42and the Swinger was on its way to
27:44becoming Polaroid's best-selling
27:46camera yet.
27:48At headquarters, all the news seemed
27:50to be good. And outside of Cambridge,
27:52it was becoming clear
27:54that maybe land was onto something
27:56real. I think the most magical
27:58thing about Polaroid is the fact
28:00that it is such an instant
28:02kind of connective tissue between people.
28:04You no longer had this process where you
28:06had to involve anyone else.
28:08It was just me and you in a room.
28:10In the American
28:12South at the time of segregation,
28:14in Jim Crow, a lab
28:16technician might be white
28:18and not believe that certain images of
28:20black people should be seen.
28:22But with Polaroid, you have
28:24the opportunity through the camera
28:26to document your lives.
28:28You could take a Polaroid
28:30without the pressure of
28:32anyone external judging
28:34or controlling.
28:36It came with it sort of freedom
28:38to document your life as you were living it.
28:40Through the mid-20th
28:42century, being queer
28:44is a secret.
28:46Being queer is also
28:48a crime.
28:50So when I look
28:52at Polaroid photos of
28:54queer people in the 1950s,
28:56you see true joy,
28:58you see true love.
29:00Inevitably, they wanted
29:02that joy that they felt in photographs
29:04to exist at all
29:06times and just
29:08to not be held down
29:10anymore.
29:14Back at Cambridge,
29:16Land was busy building much more
29:18than the next camera.
29:20And it wasn't just Polaroid's customers
29:22who felt a new sense of freedom.
29:24At headquarters,
29:26a spirit of nonconformity ruled.
29:28Polaroid was
29:30the Apple computer of the 50s
29:32and 60s.
29:34Land created a company
29:36of incredible talent.
29:38It was by far the most
29:40special, most advanced,
29:42most spectacular technology company
29:44in the world. No one else
29:46was competing with them. No one else could do
29:48what they could do. It was really
29:50a revolutionary thing.
29:52But by the late 1960s,
29:54the realities of social change
29:56in America were to test Land's
29:58leadership like never before.
30:02At 5 a.m. on
30:04April 5, 1968,
30:06the assembly line workers were just finishing
30:08up their shift when they got word
30:10that Land was on site
30:12and was going to speak to them.
30:14Crowding into the cafeteria,
30:16few would have expected what he now
30:18would talk about.
30:20Martin Luther King is dead,
30:22Land announced.
30:24He called it a crisis point in American
30:26society and explained that he
30:28intended to bring more Black workers
30:30into Polaroid across all levels
30:32of the company.
30:34This is the first public
30:36and highly political statement
30:38that we see from an individual like Land
30:40on the occasion of the
30:42assassination of Martin Luther King.
30:44And it tells us something about, I think,
30:46the ability of an inventor or CEO
30:48to really enact
30:50change.
30:52Land's commitment that morning would soon
30:54translate into the recruitment of more
30:56Black professionals into Polaroid's
30:58ranks.
31:00I went to Xavier University and majored in
31:02chemistry. I remember
31:04we received a pamphlet
31:06that included various
31:08corporations with job
31:10offers, and we just filled that out by
31:12hand, if you can imagine.
31:14Polaroid was well celebrated
31:16within the scientific community,
31:18and it had a reputation of being liberal.
31:20So, to me, it was an easy
31:22decision.
31:24To a certain degree, the company itself
31:26was a space of social
31:28mobility and change.
31:30Built into that was, I think, a kind
31:32of notion of social good.
31:34And so, in some
31:36ways, that was a testament
31:38to Land.
31:40For Polaroid's thousands of employees,
31:42the name itself could be a point
31:44of pride.
31:46We have been writing, without realizing it,
31:48a tremendous technological
31:50symphony.
31:52We are one of the strongest companies
31:54in the world in terms
31:56of those spiritual and intellectual
31:58qualities that lead to human
32:00strength.
32:02But the reality was, working
32:04for a man as brilliant and
32:06as demanding as Edwin Land
32:08was never, ever
32:10easy.
32:12It was an unusual place to work
32:14in that it was more
32:16sort of idealistic and cerebral,
32:18and therefore more of a pain in the neck.
32:20This is a time when people were concerned with getting a job
32:22for life, where they were just going to put their heads
32:24down, do the hours, come home,
32:26have some semblance of
32:28family structure, and
32:30Polaroid asked far more of you.
32:32You somehow could not fit in unless
32:34you were willing to just say, Polaroid is my
32:36everything.
32:38Land was dedicated
32:40to his research.
32:42When he had a problem that he was working
32:44on, it subsumed his life.
32:46If Edwin Land had an idea
32:48in the middle of the night, he'd be calling up
32:50saying, you know, I need you right now.
32:52He could be abrupt,
32:54he could be tough to work with.
32:56Social niceties didn't occur to him.
32:58I know in the days
33:00when I was there, there were many people
33:02who ran around, Polaroid was scared
33:04to death of him. His expectation
33:06was that you would be there. You often
33:08did have to make those choices and sacrifice
33:10family and relationships
33:12and just, yeah, Polaroid
33:14was your relationship.
33:16For better or for worse, Land was
33:18the same person at work and at home
33:20as Terry and his two
33:22young daughters knew all too well.
33:24One time,
33:26he was taking them to the movies and they
33:28stood out on the front porch
33:30while he went to the back of the house
33:32to get the car, and he got in the car
33:34and he drove down to the lab.
33:36He went right by them.
33:38It tells you something about the way
33:40he operated.
33:42He was very fond of his
33:44wife and his daughters,
33:46but his focus was
33:48on his work.
33:56After decades of research
33:58and countless long days and late nights
34:00with Moroy Morris and Polaroid's
34:02chemists and engineers, Land's
34:04dreams were finally coming
34:06true. In 1969,
34:08Land created
34:10a prototype of what would become SX-70.
34:12That is what most people most commonly
34:14will associate with Polaroid,
34:16the little square with the
34:18wider border at the bottom where you'd write notes.
34:20All along, this
34:22was the camera that Land had been
34:24building in his mind.
34:26At long last, the photographs
34:28were in brilliant color and
34:30developed in seconds.
34:32No peeling, no coating,
34:34no anything required.
34:36The SX-70 was nothing
34:38short of genius.
34:40Most people, when they take their Polaroid
34:42picture, they're thinking that this is
34:44the masterpiece. But from a scientist's
34:46point of view, this is the masterpiece.
34:52So when you press the button, light hits the surface
34:54of the film. It starts the process
34:56for the negative to be created.
34:58You've got these sensitive
35:00layers that are sensitive to different colors
35:02that are activated. And then there's
35:04also layers of dyes. They start
35:06to activate right away. All of those
35:08things are happening at the same time.
35:10And then this exposure exits
35:12the camera. And then at the
35:14bottom of that frame, that's where the
35:16special chemicals that are officially called goo
35:18are spread onto the different layers
35:20and the reaction starts. In less than
35:2260 seconds, you have the image.
35:24I, like everyone, like to talk about this as
35:26a magic trick. Of course.
35:28Look at it. But it's actually
35:30better than magic because it's human.
35:32This is the product
35:34of very, very smart people
35:36applying themselves super
35:38hard, going at it as hard as they
35:40can, working 20-hour days,
35:42using science
35:44and art together
35:46to make something wonderful.
35:48And they succeeded.
35:50Because it's not
35:52mystical. It's brains.
35:54In
35:56tangible form.
35:58It was a triumph
36:00so long sought.
36:02Land liked to say that coming up with the idea
36:04had taken him an afternoon.
36:06And realizing it, almost
36:08three decades.
36:10It would be another couple of years before
36:12the SX-70 would be ready for the
36:14market. But the experiment had,
36:16at long last,
36:18succeeded.
36:20I look forward
36:22to the time a few years from now
36:24of starting to use
36:26in its accuracy,
36:28its intricacy, its beauty,
36:30our long-awaited
36:32ultimate camera
36:34that is a part
36:36of the evolving
36:38human being.
36:40But the truth was, no matter how fast
36:42Polaroid rushed the SX-70 to market,
36:44it wouldn't be quite
36:46soon enough.
36:48At the age of only 46,
36:50Land Morse was losing a battle
36:52with cancer.
36:54Up until the very last week of her life,
36:56Morse kept working,
36:58pushing forward the technology
37:00she'd done so much to help create.
37:02On July
37:0429th, 1969,
37:06Polaroid's
37:08pioneering chemist died.
37:10Land was right there with her
37:12in the hospital in her last days.
37:14He was losing someone
37:16he considered his scientific
37:18soulmate.
37:20For Edwin Land, the things that you loved
37:22and the things that you cherished
37:24were few and far between.
37:26And so that must have been very difficult.
37:28At Polaroid,
37:30work had to go on.
37:32Although for the rest of his life,
37:34Land would keep Morse's office
37:36untouched,
37:38exactly as she'd left it.
37:40Land was on the cusp
37:42of achieving everything
37:44he'd ever dreamed of.
37:46But unfortunately,
37:48America's most successful
37:50living inventor was,
37:52more than ever,
37:54alone.
37:56T-max,
37:585, 4, 3,
38:002, 1,
38:02zero.
38:04Ignition.
38:06Lift off.
38:08Lift off.
38:10As the years rolled on
38:12and the Cold War heated up,
38:14he was increasingly leading
38:16a double life.
38:18Land was the CIA's
38:20number one consultant
38:22on the issue of surveillance
38:24and technology.
38:26He developed the E-2 spy plane.
38:28When America was ready
38:30to put up its first spy satellites,
38:32he was in charge
38:34of that technology.
38:36He continued to work
38:38with the military, with the CIA,
38:40throughout his career.
38:42Superman and Clark Kent.
38:44Privacy, reclusiveness,
38:46you know, cautiousness
38:48on the one hand,
38:50but the Barnum and Bailey
38:52showman on the other hand,
38:54who has the next great technological
38:56advance that he wants
38:58to show the world.
39:00Land's secret work
39:02never got in the way of his business.
39:04But by the early 1970s,
39:06he'd sunk so much capital
39:08into making Polaroid independent
39:10and cutting any need for codex
39:12help or film, that his company
39:14was now precariously leveraged
39:16on churning out a steady stream
39:18of successful new products.
39:20Polaroid's been used from
39:22pornography to dentistry and literally
39:24everything in between.
39:26From high fashion to cutting edge
39:28medicine, Polaroid had never
39:30been more places at once.
39:32The full array of its applications
39:34and the devices it now produced
39:36quite simply boggled the mind.
39:38Now Polaroid decided
39:40that it was going to make this wonderful camera
39:42that would be great for governments.
39:44It was called the ID2.
39:46The ID2 is a 23 kilo
39:48hulk of a camera.
39:50And it only does one thing.
39:52It takes possible photographs.
39:54All right, will you sit right back please?
39:56This advanced method known as the Polaroid
39:58Land Identification System simplifies
40:00the procedure of identifying people
40:02by providing speed and accuracy.
40:04But the simplicity of the ID2's
40:06processing meant that it was tailor made
40:08to be a wholly different kind of tool.
40:10As two Polaroid employees,
40:12Caroline Hunter and
40:14Ken Williams, were about to find out.
40:16I'm at Polaroid.
40:18We're going to lunch
40:20and we turn around and look at the
40:22bulletin board and there is a mock-up
40:24of an ID card and it says
40:26Department of the Mines Union of South Africa.
40:28Ken says, wow,
40:30I didn't know Polaroid was in South Africa.
40:32And that was the beginning.
40:34See,
40:36this is 1970.
40:381969, the year before, the UN says
40:40no company, no country
40:42should interact with South Africa.
40:44It had an oppressive white supremacist regime.
40:46And so Caroline and Ken
40:48spent two weeks in the Cambridge Library
40:50and this is what they found out.
40:52Every black South African had to carry with them a passbook.
40:54A passbook is a 20 page
40:56document that could tell where this person
40:58could go and where this person could not go.
41:00At the heart of this passbook
41:02was a picture created by Polaroid.
41:04Polaroid had neither hidden
41:06nor advertised its business
41:08in South Africa.
41:10Most Americans, even most Polaroid employees,
41:12quite simply,
41:14knew nothing about it.
41:16Obviously we were horrified.
41:18We realized if our labor is being used
41:20for this, we have to do something about it.
41:22In October,
41:24Hunter and Williams launched
41:26a grassroots movement.
41:28Only a few months later,
41:30they were talking about Polaroid at the United Nations.
41:32I want to say right on,
41:34brothers, I'm very proud
41:36to be here.
41:38They were incredibly successful.
41:40They called for a full boycott in 1970
41:42and that spread all over
41:44the world like wildfire.
41:46Now, everywhere Land went,
41:48his speaking engagements
41:50were disrupted by protesters.
41:52We decided we were going to protest
41:54Land's presence as the guest speaker
41:56at this international convention
41:58for American scientists.
42:00So when he gets on the stage and he has this exchange
42:02with Ken and they talk about Polaroid
42:04in South Africa, Land is
42:06very upset. He says, well, I have more
42:08black people than anybody else.
42:10Then he rambles on with all of the
42:12apologies that the South African
42:14government makes for apartheid.
42:16As the boycott threatened
42:18Polaroid's image and its sales
42:20during the busy holiday season,
42:22Land was asked what he thought about
42:24South Africa.
42:26The reason why I'm mad, he replied,
42:28is because these protesters
42:30are interfering with my personal goals.
42:32You're not speaking
42:34about someone who's always ethically minded,
42:36you're talking about someone who is driven
42:38by the technology,
42:40by doing the things
42:42that people thought were impossible.
42:44For him, it wasn't about ethics,
42:46it was about the product. It wasn't about
42:48whether something was right or wrong.
42:50So anyone that was standing in the way,
42:52damaging the reputation,
42:54just barking up the wrong tree.
42:56By the spring of 1971,
42:58Polaroid had fired
43:00both Ken Williams and Caroline
43:02Hunter. But they
43:04refused to give up. And
43:06in the end, Polaroid would bow to
43:08public pressure and stop
43:10conducting business in South Africa.
43:12For his part,
43:14Land never took responsibility
43:16for Polaroid's involvement
43:18with the apartheid regime.
43:20Perhaps in life there is no
43:22such thing as an explicit, correct
43:24choice. I don't know.
43:26We said to people, what are you
43:28going to support? What do you believe in?
43:30But for Edwin Land, he
43:32pretended South Africa wasn't
43:34there. He pretended he had
43:36no role in supporting
43:38apartheid.
43:40By the end of the controversy,
43:42Land was still as powerful
43:44as ever. But some illusions
43:46and some ideals
43:48had been forever shattered.
43:50Don't kid yourself,
43:52one employee remarked. Polaroid
43:54is a one-man company.
43:58The Polaroid Corporation
44:00plans to put an instant motion
44:02picture system on the market later on this year.
44:04Yesterday, the company
44:06showed the system to its stockholders.
44:08From the very beginning,
44:10Polaroid's guiding star
44:12had been Land's seemingly mystical
44:14ability to divine and deliver
44:16the next piece of tech that
44:18Americans didn't even know they wanted.
44:20And now he'd given
44:22the world this thing called
44:24Polar Vision.
44:26Is Polar Vision
44:28what America needed?
44:30Edwin Land certainly thought it was.
44:32Not many people can see
44:34that something is significant
44:36until after it is done.
44:38And we have become expert
44:40in sensing way ahead of time
44:42what is necessary,
44:44what is desirable, what will be enjoyable.
44:46So many people
44:48said to Land that Polar Vision
44:50was a terrible idea. They could foresee
44:52all of the problems with the product.
44:54It wasn't great quality. It's meant to be portable.
44:56You know, the portable processor.
44:58It's really not very portable.
45:00It can't quite record sound.
45:02It's kind of like a silent film.
45:04It was a really quite ridiculous product.
45:06Times were changing.
45:08For almost half a century,
45:10Polaroid had driven that change.
45:12But now, things were different.
45:14Land was increasingly sort of
45:16out of touch with what the consumer
45:18wanted or needed, where almost
45:20any idea that he would come up with was
45:22something that was worth pursuing.
45:24As you age, you don't want to be told
45:26you don't know what people want.
45:28You don't want to be told
45:30this isn't it.
45:32At Polaroid, employees
45:34had once called Land the boy genius.
45:36But he wasn't a boy
45:38any longer.
45:40With its stock in freefall, there were
45:42ramblings that Land should step down.
45:44All his financial gambles,
45:46once the very measure
45:48of his success, seemed
45:50to be finally catching up with him.
45:52And the news just
45:54kept getting worse.
45:58Since the debut of the
46:00Model 95 back in 1948,
46:02Polaroid had always been
46:04alone in the instant photography market.
46:06No longer.
46:08In 1976, Kodak
46:10finally did it. They introduced a line
46:12of instant cameras in film. The camera
46:14produced a picture that came out with a white tab
46:16at the bottom and began to zzzz right out of the camera.
46:18Land took this very personally.
46:20He said, I'm disappointed in them.
46:22They have all these resources,
46:24all the money in the world, they're ten times our size,
46:26all these smart people
46:28working for them, and all they could do was
46:30rip us off.
46:32From now on, the full force of Land's
46:34intellect, and the entirety of his
46:36focus, would be devoted to
46:38a new singular task.
46:40Taking Kodak to court,
46:42and making them pay.
46:44The patent suits could take years to resolve.
46:46At stake is the six billion dollar
46:48American photographic business.
46:50From the very beginnings of the trial,
46:52Land was turning up every single day
46:54at court.
46:56It was his cause. It was his company.
46:58It was his work. It was his passion.
47:00It was all on trial there.
47:02It was righteousness.
47:04He did not just want a settlement
47:06where Kodak paid a fee
47:08every year. He wanted Kodak
47:10out of the business. And the lawyers
47:12kept saying, we could work this out.
47:14And he said, no, I want an injunction.
47:16Over the course of the entire trial,
47:18Land's attention never wavered.
47:20The minutia of the proceedings
47:22obsessing him, just as completely
47:24as any laboratory mystery
47:26once had.
47:28Instead of delegating the case to a very
47:30capable team of lawyers, Land
47:32felt that no one else could fight Polaroid's
47:34corner better than he could.
47:36He was not doing anything else.
47:38So the company just felt
47:40like a ship without a
47:42captain. By the 1980s,
47:44instant photography remained
47:46as popular as ever.
47:48But the company that had started it all
47:50was struggling to survive.
47:52And even good news just
47:54couldn't right the ship.
47:56The legal action was as complex as the cameras,
47:58but there was nothing instant about the outcome.
48:00So today, Kodak conceded defeat.
48:02Their cameras and films being removed
48:04this morning from stores right across America.
48:06Kodak actually had to pull
48:08all of its camera and film out
48:10of the stores, even though 13 million
48:12Americans already had them.
48:14They had a big picnic at Polaroid
48:16headquarters. They had
48:18T-shirts made out, they won, they won,
48:20they won. And by then,
48:22it's incredibly sad
48:24because it was already,
48:26they may not have grasped,
48:28but it was already over.
48:30The fight had been irrelevant.
48:32In Cambridge, the once
48:34unimaginable had come to pass.
48:36Edwin Land
48:38had been pushed out of Polaroid.
48:40The company
48:42he'd founded and led for
48:44almost half a century
48:46would not last long without him.
48:54As Polaroid's influence
48:56faded, Americans seemed
48:58to move on, falling in love
49:00with a whole new kind of magic machine.
49:02So much digital technology
49:04has come along and taken away
49:06the kind of reasons for Polaroid for being.
49:08In actual
49:10fact, I think there are very few things in life
49:12that are as magical as watching the Polaroid
49:14image develop in your hand.
49:16There is this little bit of
49:18alchemy that makes this beautiful
49:20object, which forever
49:22ties you to the moment.
49:24Yeah, that's the magic that just
49:26endures and will endure forever.
49:30To take a good
49:32picture, you must open your eyes,
49:34open your heart,
49:36and just look.
49:38I'm constantly in awe
49:40of Edwin Land
49:42and what he accomplished in one lifetime.
49:44Everything that was new was interesting to him.
49:46What ideas he was
49:48creating and
49:50what he saw for the future
49:52was just thrilling and exciting.
49:54Land's story
49:56is a critical American story,
49:58but it has to be told to the full
50:00truth of who he was, what
50:02he did, and the impact of all
50:04of his work good and bad.
50:06Land really believed at its core
50:08that Polaroid could do good
50:10by giving people control
50:12to capture their image,
50:14but he struggled when
50:16the need to do social good intersected
50:18with the realities of running a company.
50:20Through it all, Land's
50:22focus was always on his work,
50:24on how his next invention
50:26might have the power to change people's
50:28lives. Land
50:30had this idea that
50:32you would document your whole life
50:34in pictures, and your family's whole life
50:36in pictures. I think if we were to gather all of the
50:38Polaroids ever taken and we were to put them in one place,
50:40we'd actually be able to see
50:42a much more nuanced view
50:44of humanity.
50:46There was no editing.
50:48There was no cropping out of that
50:50person that you didn't like.
50:52Polaroid was in the business of making us more
50:54human. I mean, instant
50:56photography is such a personal thing
50:58because when I
51:00take a picture of someone I just saw a moment ago,
51:02we were focusing on
51:04things that are going on in the present, but we're also
51:06focused on things that are in the past.
51:10Most of us can't be time travelers,
51:12but I think that's the magic of Polaroid
51:14pictures.
51:20Next time.
51:22It looked normal,
51:24but it wasn't normal.
51:26This was idealized
51:28sort of Nazi town, and they
51:30thought that Nazism was entirely consistent
51:32with American ideals.
51:34They're after
51:36power. They're after influence
51:38within the very fabric of the United States.
51:40Nazi Town,
51:42USA. Next time on American
51:44Experience. Made possible
51:46in partnership with
51:48American Experience. Made possible
51:50in part by Liberty Mutual Insurance.
51:54American Experience, Mr. Polaroid
51:56is available with PBS
51:58Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
52:18American Experience
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52:12
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