Meet inventor Edwin Land, whose iconic Polaroid camera made photography instant and accessible.
American Experience “Mr. Polaroid” airs Saturday, May 24 at 4 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXX app.
Long before the iPhone, another inventive device allowed everyone to instantly chronicle their lives — the Polaroid camera. The product, and the company’s unique culture, would launch not only instant photography mania but also become the model for today’s Silicon Valley tech culture. It all began with the Polaroid Model 95, first offered for sale in the fall of 1948. Its revolutionary power to allow the photographer to see the picture then and there would change the country, then the world. Mr. Polaroid tells the little-known story of the man behind the camera, a Harvard dropout named Edwin Land. Over a half century ago, before the smartphone, Land was dreaming up “a camera that you would use as often as your pencil or your eyeglasses.” He would also come to believe his company was “on its way to lead the world — perhaps even to save it.” Hubris, technology, brilliance, and a billion photographs a year are all part of the rollicking Polaroid story.
Photo: Edwin Land holding Polavision camera with Bill McCune.
Credit: Joan Marcus