Edwin H. Land

He passed away in Cambridge, Massachusetts of natural causes on March 1, 1991 at the age of 81.

Herbert was the epitome of the "absent-minded professor", who would sometimes get so caught up with his work that he'd forget to eat for hours. He once wore the same clothes for 18 days in a row while working on one particularly thorny problem.

Edwin Herbert Land was born on May 7, 1909 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. His mother was Martha Land, and his father was Harry Land, who owned a scrap metal yard.

As a young man, Edwin attended the ‘Norwich Free Academy’ in Norwich, Connecticut, where he graduated in 1927.

In 1926, Land was accepted into ‘Harvard University’, where he studied chemistry. After two months, he dropped out of school, eager to pursue a business idea concerning polarized light.

He began studying optics in the ‘New York Public Library’ and conducting his own experiments in a basement laboratory in ‘Columbia University’.

In 1929, he returned to Harvard after convincing the head of the physics department to give him his own lab. Edwin’s mission was to perfect a sheet polarizer for industrial production processes.

In 1932, he found a business partner in George Wheelright, who had been Land's physics instructor at Harvard. After the company began developing polarizing filters for sunglasses, Wall Street investors agreed to help finance the company.

In 1937, the corporation, originally named ‘Land-Wheeliwright Laboratories’, changed its name to the ‘Polaroid Corporation’. Herbert continued to develop sheet polarizers for the company.

Although Edwin Herbert Land was an accomplished scientist, he is best known for being one of the co-founders of the Polaroid Corporation. His invention of instant cameras paved the way for modern day photography.