1936 | Photography
Photography
Eastman Kodak introduces Kodachrome in 35-millimeter cartridges and a paper-backed rollfilm (see 1935). The 18-exposure 35-millimeter cartridge goes on sale in August for $3.50, processing included, and makes color photography as easy for an amateur as black-and-white (see Kodacolor, 1944).
The Minox minicamera has its beginnings in a prototype created at Riga, Latvia, by local inventor Walter Zapp, 31, who at age 17 went to work as an apprentice art photographer at Tallinn, Estonia, but found professional wooden cameras too heavy to lug around. His minicamera can be hidden in a closed hand, espionage agents will put it to good use, Zapp will flee to Germany in 1941, and after 1945 he will start a company at Wetzlar with help from a friend. The optics company Leitz will acquire Minox in 1989 and hire the octagenarian Zapp as a development engineer.
Asahi Optical Co. is founded by Japanese entrepreneur Saburo Matsumoto, whose late uncle started a company in 1919 to make eyeglass lenses. Matsumoto pursues his uncle's dream of marketing an entirely Japanese-made camera but will soon be making optical equipment and binoculars for the military (see 1952).
Photographs: You Have Seen Their Faces by Margaret Bourke-White (text by Erskine Caldwell) contains 70 photos of poverty-stricken Americans in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee; Nude by Edward Weston.