Eastman Kodak

A corporate employee 50 year long service medal is evidence of a company that treated it’s workers very well. Back in the days when unions were born because workers were viewed as expendable slaves there were a few remarkably progressive and humane employers. George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak was the best of the best. His complete biography is on the net so I will just mention a few high points in passing. He established the first profit sharing plan for employees in 1899 which he called a “Wage Dividend.” In 1919 he gave a full third of his stock holdings in the company to his employees. Later he established a retirement annuity for the employees plus life insurance and disability plans. The Eastman Kodak company issued large bronze 25 year medals and a gold 50 year medal that I know of. Both medals have Eastman’s portrait on the obverse and have an engraved reverse. The gold medal reverse shown here is engraved “PRESENTED TO JOHN MINES IN RECOGNITION OF HALF A CENTURY OF LOYAL SERVICE WITH KODAK LIMITED 1958.” The Kodak Limited version of the name indicates that the issuer was the branch of the company located in Great Britain; the medal however is marked “B.B. Co 10K” for Bastian Brothers of Newark N.J. who bought out the older famous firm of Whitehead and Hoag.