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Edwin Land and Instant Photography: Massachusetts' First National Historic

Chemical Landmark. Symposium, Sunday Aug 16, 2015 ACS National Meeting,
Boston, MA
Organizers: Jack Driscoll, Vivian Walworth & Mike Filosa
Sponsored by HIST and Cosponsored by PRES
Where/When: Boston Convention & Exhibition Center,Room 50 (Exhibition Level)
Time: 2:00-430 PM
Judy Giordan: R & D at Polaroid- Spectra - the Last Great Polaroid Film Product
From unique mul.-layer coated nega.ves, to amazing cameras, to what is considered by many to be the
rst high tech start up emulated by many followers including Apple, Polaroid was a place for
technological and personal rsts - and lasts - for many of its employees. It was my rst job, rst .me as a
supervisor, and my rst role in leading a company-wide product development and open team (not a
construct enjoyed at Polaroid outside of the lm manufacturing world of New Bedford) which
commercialized the last major Polaroid lm product, The Spectra System. It is where I met my husband,
made many long las.ng friendships and learned from the experiences, good and challenging, that
formed the basis of my career in the chemical and consumer products industries. Please join me as I
describe my journey in scien.c discovery, product development and applied research in lm
development and discovery at Polaroid from sheet to pod to nega.ve to lm system.

Larry Friedman: Secrets of the Polaroid Nega?ve: Manufacturing and Analy?cs in New
Bedford

Lawrence Friedman
Bill McCune and his protg, Mac Booth, had willed a brand-new lm nega=ve factory designed from
the ground up to perform from the moment the rst switch was pulled. It produced faultlessly the one
element of the system that was indispensible, an incredibly precise, mul=layered nega=ve tuned like a
harpsichord to minute but signicant dierences in color deni=on, lm speed, and exposure la=tude.
The nega=ve manufacturing plant in New Bedford was one of the major miracles of the SX-70 project
Peter C. Wensberg, Lands Polaroid, Houghton Miin, 1987
The rst large-scale nega.ve coa.ng runs in New Bedford were made in the mid-1970s at a coa.ng
speed of 100 linear feet per minute and con.nued for up to 12 hours, producing 360,000 sq. V. of lm
nega.ve and all in the dark. By 1980, several dierent color lm nega.ves were being produced
typically at a coa.ng speed of 300 linear feet per minute for up to 60 hours, with a yield of up to
5,400,000 sq. V. of lm nega.ve and s.ll in the dark.
I joined Polaroid in June 1974, as General Supervisor of the Analy.cal Labs, the primary chemistry-
focused quality control component of lm nega.ve manufacturing in the recently completed New

Bedford lm manufacturing plant. In the course of my 13 years at Polaroid I moved to leading new lm
system development and then managing lm nega.ve QA/QC, but those rst years in New Bedford were
at the heart of Polaroid. Please join me as I describe the structure of typical Polaroid color nega.ves, the
techniques used to monitor manufacturing and chemical quality control of these materials and some of
the anecdotes that made Polaroid Film produc.on in New Bedford unique in so many ways.

Chris Hollinsed: Development of Chemical Manufacturing Procedures at Polaroid


In the BC days (before computers and digital photography), Polaroid Corporation developed a system for
single step photography. The entire system was based on new chemistry and coating technologies that
had never existed before. Why were new chemicals needed and what were the performance criteria?
Why and how did Polaroid get into the chemical manufacturing business and what were the results?
What was the impact of Ed Land's culture on this operation? How did the chemical development
operation learn to do rapid and high quality scale-up to manufacturing as a core skill? What did we all
learn from this and take with us to other places in the industry? A series of illustrative anecdotes will be
discussed highlighting the skills developed at Polaroid as well as the limitations resulting from not being a
legacy chemical enterprise.

Michael Filosa- The Evolu?on of Color Chemistry at Polaroid and ZINK Imaging - Edwin Lands

Legacy Today
Star.ng in 1979, in the building complex adjacent to Edwin Lands Laboratory, I began applying my
training as a synthe.c organic chemist improving Polaroids color lm products and working on novel
imaging systems. Later, as a part of a team led by Stephen Telfer and Stephen Herchen, we invented a
novel, direct thermal, full color, instant imaging system. This direct thermal imaging system led to the
spinout of ZINK Imaging from Polaroid in 2005. ZINK Imaging and the Impossible Project are the
con.nua.on, today, of Edwin Lands legacy in instant photography.

John Warner: What Else Evolved from Polaroid? Green Chemistry


The development of Green Chemistry is historically entwined with Polaroid technologies. John Warner,
one of the co-Authors of Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice (with Paul Anastas) was a Polaroid
Employee when the book and the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry were developed. This presentation
will highlight some of the overlaps between the innovative culture of Polaroid research and the early
frameworks of Green Chemistry.

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