Doing History in Corporate America: A Case Study of the Eastman Kodak Archives

My initial idea for my senior thesis project was to create a online exhibit about the Kodak Camera Club (KCC), using materials from the archive at the Eastman Kodak Company that I helped to build for my internship, as well as oral history interviews with former KCC members. Since my last update, my topic has not changed much, but I have been in contact with several individuals at Kodak who have helped me shape and narrow the scope of the project. As of right now, my research question is: How can museum and archival practices be applied to corporate settings (such as the Eastman Kodak Company), and what unique legal, ethical, and practical considerations need to be made when creating an exhibit by and for a private company? I will work with Kodak's marketing department, which is in charge of the newly-created archives, to create an exhibit about the history of the KCC, which at its height in the 1950s and 60s had thousands of members across all Kodak departments.

I am still working to hone in on a concise topic, but my discussions with Matt Stouffel at Kodak have helped me to decide how I want to approach this project, and I look forward to continuing to develop my ideas!

Thesis Ideas

During my internship at Kodak in June, I focused primarily on processing a large collection of documents, photographs, and objects related to the Kodak Camera Club (KCC). The KCC was an organization of Kodak employees who were interested in amateur photography. At the height of Kodak's success in the mid-to-late twentieth century, the Camera Club had hundreds of members across all departments in the company. Members could rent photographic equipment and enter their work in salons and exhibitions that took place several times a year. The organization disbanded entirely in the early 2000s when Kodak was struggling financially, but all of the meeting minutes, exhibition planning materials, event photographs, and other materials remain in the Kodak Archive. In trying to piece together the story of this employee organization, I realized quickly that almost none of the current employees at Kodak had any knowledge of the KCC, as many of the employees who were members of the club have either retired or lost their jobs when the company declared bankruptcy.

My idea for my thesis is to record oral histories from retired and former Kodak employees who were members of the Kodak Camera Club, to get a better understanding of how the club functioned and the role that it played in the corporate culture at Kodak in the second half of the 20th century. As many of the people who were employed at Kodak in its heyday are either deceased or very elderly, there is an immediate need for oral history research. These interviews, coupled with the resources in the Kodak Archive, could result in an online exhibition about the history of the Kodak Camera Club.