Photography and moving pictures

Photography - the making and recording of visual images by physicochemical means - is not a single well-defined technology. The earliest experimental discoveries on photochemistry (especially the light sensitivity of silver com- pounds) date back a t least to 1727 (J.H. Schulze). The optical prerequisites for cameras are even older. The camera obscura was invented in 1553, if not earlier, and the use of lenses, shutters, and mirrors to sharpen the image was established before 1600. Thus the means of fixing an image on some permanent medium was the major barrier t o practical use. The first permanent photographic image (on glass) is attributed to Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1822). Means of fixing a n image on a metal plate followed in 1826 and attracted the notice of Louis J.M.

Daguerre. Daguerre joined Niepce in 1829, and 10 more years of development resulted in the daguerrotype process (iodized silver plate, fixed by mercury fumes), which was a commercial success. Nevertheless, it required an exposure of 4,000 seconds t o obtain a good image ( f / l l ) in sunlight. This was cut to 80 seconds a year later by resensitizing the plate with bromine.

The process of making "positiven reproductions from a "negativen image was invented by W.H. Fox Talbot (UK) in 1840. A new material, collodion (a stabilized form of cellulose nitrate) was developed as a by-product of the search for more effective explosives conducted by Christian Schoenbein in 1847. The wet plate collodion process developed by Fred Scott Archer in 1851 superceded the daguerrotype and increased sensitivity another tenfold. The next step was to coat plates with an emulsion of silver bromide in collodion advanced by B.J.

Sayce and W.B. Bolton in 1864 and by Bolton alone in 1874. Sensitivity improved further with the introduction by C. Russell in 1862 of alkaline develop- ment, but this was not perfected until the advent of gelatino-silver bromide dry plates, which increased sensitivity by another factor of 16 by 1880 and a further factor of five by 1885. By this time exposure time was down to 1/10 of a second.

Progress has continued rapidly since then: 1/100 of a second was achieved by 1930, 11500 by 1950, and 112,500 by 1960 (Figure I d ) .

The substitution of roll film for glass plates, which vastly increased the market for photography, was the contribution of George Eastman (1884), and the first roll film (Kodak) camera was marketed by Eastman in 1888. This was

1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 Year

Figure 14. Technological progress in photographic imaging: normalized to f / l l , full sun, and black and white.

the start of the Eastman Kodak Company. A new flexible nitrocellulose-based (celluloid) film was introduced by Hannibal Goodwin in 1888 and produced by Eastman in 1889. Edison's contributions to sound recording (the recording tele- graph and the phonograph, 1877) attracted his interest to moving pictures.

Edweard Muybridge's "zoopraxiscopen (1879) was the first system for rapid sequential photography. Edison applied it to the new flexible film and invented his kinetoscope (1893) for playing a strip of successive time-delayed images, using a stroboscopic light and a hole-and-sprocket system for pulling the film.

The final idea of projecting the images continuously on a screen was patented by brothers L.J. and A.M.L.N. Lumikre (1895). The silent movie became popular almost overnight thereafter. However, it became a great economic success only in the decades after 1930 when sound and later color were added.

4.11. Conclusion

It is clear that the simple well-defined clustering of critical innovations that occurred near the years 1775 and 1825, and kicked off the first two Kondratieff waves, did not repeat with the third technological transformation, ca. 1875. A far more complex pattern ensued. The third wave of growth was characterized by no less than five distinct leading sectors, which did not coincide exactly. The first two were the steel industry and the petroleum industry. The next three, which were displaced by about 20 years, were telephones, electric light and power, and automobiles. (Indeed, still other industries, such as industrial chemi- cals and agricultural machinery, could well have been included.)

The time displacement was hardly accidental. It has been pointed out that a highly developed steel industry was a prerequisite for both the electric power industry and the auto industry. A sophisticated petroleum refining industry was also a prerequisite for autos. Lastly, electric power was a prerequisite for both telephones and products using the electric furnace, which, again, were a prere- quisite for the high-speed grinding technology that made truly large-scale aut*

mobile manufacturing economically feasible.

Another difference between the third transformation and the first two is that the role of labor-saving (or time-saving, labor-extending) technologies appears to have been significantly increased. This characterization applies to telecommunications, electric light, and electric traction, for instance. It also applies to a variety of kitchen and household appliances, such as the sewing machine, and to agricultural machines, such as the harvester, which were not explicitly discussed. The internal-combustion engine (ICE), the steam turbine, and factory electrification are examples of innovations that conserved energy.

Capital was also saved, if the capital invested in the central generating and dis- tribution system can be allocated to all users. Petroleum refining was, in effect, a resource-extending innovation. The use of steel rails in place of iron rails was also an energy-saving innovation, inasmuch as steel rails lasted much longer than their iron counterparts. To the extent that they permitted heavier trains and higher speeds, they also conserved (or extended) capital.

Many of the key innovations of the third technological transformation can- not well be characterized by any of the above labels, inasmuch as they really offered new services to consumers, either directly or indirectly ^(as in the case of new materials). The boundary between labor-extending innovations and new services needs clarification. Gaslight and the electric light are labor extending insofar as they facilitate production. They are new services insofar ^as they increase the quality of life for consumers. This is true of the electric streetcar, the telegraph, the telephone, the bicycle, and many household appliances. as well. The automobile (and its relative, the truck) also can be counted under both headings today, though the private car was mainly a luxury - except for farmers - until the 1950s.