Land presenting the Polavision home movie system, 1977 – from the Wikipedia article linked in this post
Toronto. … is an expression of mild amazement from my youth. The expression came to mind when I saw notice of Edwin (Herbert) Land‘s death in issue 17-1 (May/June 1991) of our journal.
Ev, who was editor at the time , mentioned that inventor Land lived from 1909 to 1991. In his column, Editor’s Notebook, he mentions that, “Polaroid was a name coined by a friend [of Land’s] in 1934 to describe Edwin Land’s first product, a synthetic polarizing material which proved suitable for sunglasses, gun sights and similar uses, that he had researched while a student at Harvard.
“It is really the name of a company, but is now synonymous with Instant Photography. It is interesting to note that the inventor had considered the name Epibolipol. How fortunate it was abandoned!”
Ev continues the story which members read (and can read now on the pdf version). The PHSC DVD contains volumes 1-40 of our journal, with each issue in searchable pdf format. You can join the PHSC following either ‘MEMBERSHIP’ above or ‘Membership – Join or Renew’ at the right. Questions? Email Lilianne at member@phsc.ca.
