Lawrence Bachmann papers

This collection contains interviews, notes, two rough drafts, and a final draft of an unpublished biography of George Eastman written by Lawrence Bachmann in the early 1970s. Also included in the collection are correspondence relating to the publication of the manuscript, copies of a 1934 exchange of letters between Carl Ackerman, authorized biographer of Eastman, and Frank Lovejoy, former president of Eastman Kodak Company, and other miscellaneous correspondence and memorabilia.

Bachmann conducted fifty interviews between 1969 and 1972. In these interviews friends and business associates of Eastman discuss their memories of him. The interviews range from highly personal accounts to recollections of Eastman as a business personality. Other interviews focus on the growth of the Eastman Kodak Company since Eastman's death in 1932, and on more technical aspects of some of Kodak's manufacturing processes.

The earliest draft of the manuscript includes an outline of the proposed scope of the book and drafts of most of the later chapters. The second or "long draft," as Bachmann named it, contains fifty-nine chapters. This draft naturally divides into two parts: Eastman's life and the founding and development of the Eastman Kodak Company until Eastman's death in 1932; and the continued growth of the company from after Eastman's death until the 1960s. Bachmann condensed the fifty-nine chapters into thirty-seven chapters between March and May of 1973. After he completed this final draft, Bachmann sent certain chapters and portions of chapters out to be read and corrected by Kodak officials, including William Vaughn, and also to Harry Sious of Little, Brown, the prospective publishing house. Some of these annotated chapters appear in the final draft; others comprise a separate portion of the collection.