How Kodak invented the “snapshot”

In 1888, Eastman Kodak patented roll film and released the Kodak No. 1 box camera. The company’s business model — selling film, then processing and printing the photos taken on that film for their consumers — made photography available to the masses for the first time. Before then, photography was a complicated process requiring knowledge of chemistry and expertise working big, bulky equipment.

Later, when Kodak introduced the Brownie in 1900 and sold it for a dollar, photography went fully mainstream.