Cooper Hewitt says...
Established in 1937 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by scientist Edwin Land, the Polaroid Corporation started as a research and marketing firm for a glare reducing plastic Land developed between 1929 and 1934. Land guided the company to become a leader in polarizing technology, which it applied to a variety of products from glare-reducing goggles to night vision devices and cameras for the military and the private sector. Polaroid became best known for the invention of Land cameras that developed their own film in minutes, the first introduced in 1948 and designed by industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague. Land realized the value of industrial design about a decade earlier when he first engaged Teague and his consultancy to design the Polaroid Exective desk lamp marketed in 1939. Teague designed a number of cameras for Polaroid before the company hired designer Henry Dreyfuss to create some of its later landmark cameras for the consumer market, such as the SX-70 and the Swinger, in the 1960s and 70s. Polaroid continues today, producing digital imaging and printing devices.
