Polaroid Corporation
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| Private | |
| Industry | |
| Founded | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States; 1937 |
| Founder | Edwin H. Land |
| Headquarters | Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S. |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Scott W. Hardy (CEO) |
| Products | |
| Parent | PLR IP Holdings, LLC |
| Website | polaroid.com |
Polaroid is an American company that is a brand licensor and marketer of its portfolio of consumer electronics to companies that distribute consumer electronics and eyewear. It is best known for its Polaroid instant film and cameras.
The company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit the use of its Polaroid polarizing polymer. Land ran the company until 1981. Its peak employment was 21,000 in 1978, and its peak revenue was $3 billion in 1991.
When the original Polaroid Corporation was declared bankrupt in 2001, its brand and assets were sold off. The "new" Polaroid formed as a result itself declared bankruptcy in 2008, resulting in a further sale and the present-day Polaroid Corporation.
The original Polaroid Corporation was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Edwin Land in 1937. Described by the Boston Globe as a "juggernaut of innovation", in many respects Polaroid was the Apple of its time with a "leader in Edwin Land, a scientist who guided the company as the founding CEO for four decades". Polaroid’s initial market was in polarized sunglasses — spawned from Land’s self-guided research in light polarization. Land, having completed his freshman year at Harvard University, left to pursue this market, resulting in Polaroid's birth. Land later returned to Harvard to continue his research. Polaroid, owning patents to its polarizer technology, got its start by employing polarization in products that included 3-D movies and glare-reducing goggles for dogs. During World War II, Polaroid designed and manufactured numerous products for the armed services including an infrared night viewing device. He led the company as CEO for 43 years, he headed the Polaroid Corporation, developing it from a small research and marketing firm into one of the best-known high-tech companies ever. Kodak was a customer for some of Land's polarizing products. Recognized by most as the father of instant photography, he included all the operations of a darkroom inside the film itself. Land was pictured on the cover of Life magazine in 1972 with the inscription, "A Genius and His Magic Camera".
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