Edwin H. Land

Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in one minute or less.

Land received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the IRI Medal in 1965, the Perkin Medal in 1974, the Harold Pender Award in 1979, and the National Medal of Technology in 1988. He was also renowned outside of his home country, being a member of England's Royal Photographic Society, Royal Institution, and Royal Society (receiving Fellowship of the latter).

Edwin Herbert Land was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on May 7, 1909, the son of Jewish parents Matie (née Goldfaden) and Harry Land. His father was a Ukrainian scrap metal dealer who came to the U.S. from a village near Kyiv. Growing up, he was known to take apart household appliances such as a mantel clock and the family's new gramophone, as well as blowing all the house's fuses when he was six years old. He was scolded by his father when taking apart a gramophone and thus vowed that "nothing or nobody could stop [him] from carrying through the execution of an experiment". He had an older sister, Helen, who had a difficult time pronouncing his name and called him "Din". This became a nickname that stuck throughout the rest of his childhood and was used among his closest friends. Land attended the Norwich Free Academy at Norwich, Connecticut, a semi-private high school, and graduated in the class of 1927 with honors. The library there was posthumously named for him, having been funded by grants from his family.

Land studied physics, specifically optics, at Harvard University but left after his freshman year and moved to New York City. There he invented the first inexpensive filters capable of polarizing light, which he called Polaroid film. He was not associated with an educational institution and lacked the tools of a proper laboratory, making this a difficult endeavor, so he would sneak into a laboratory at Columbia University late at night to use their equipment. He also availed himself of the New York Public Library to scour the scientific literature for prior work on polarizing substances. In 1928, Land achieved his breakthrough by using a magnetic field to orient microscopic crystals suspended in lacquer.

Land returned to Harvard University after developing the polarizing film, but he did not finish his studies or receive a degree. Despite not receiving a college degree, he was still referred to by many as Dr. Land. According to biographer Peter Wensberg, once Land could see the solution to a problem in his head, he lost all motivation to write it down or prove his vision to others. Often his wife, Terre, would extract from him the answers to homework problems, at the prodding of his instructor. She would then write up the homework and hand it in so that he could receive credit and not fail the course.

In 1932, he established the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories together with his Harvard physics professor, George Wheelwright III, to commercialize his polarizing technology. Wheelwright came from a family of financial means and agreed to fund the company. After a few early successes developing polarizing filters for sunglasses and photographic filters, Land obtained funding from a series of Wall Street investors for further expansion.

The company was renamed the Polaroid Corporation in 1937.

Land further developed and produced the sheet polarizers under the Polaroid trademark. Although the initial major application was for sunglasses and scientific work, it quickly found many additional applications: for color animation in the Wurlitzer 850 Peacock jukebox of 1942, for glasses in full-color stereoscopic (3-D) movies, to control brightness of light through a window, as a necessary component of all LCDs, and many more.

On March 1, 1991, Land died at the age of 81 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. He was survived by Helen "Terre" Maislen, to whom he had been married since 1929, and their two daughters Jennifer and Valerie; all three declined to disclose the cause of his death. He disliked people writing about him, preferring to leave behind a legacy of published scientific work rather than a cult of personality, and his family thus had a laboratory associate shred his personal papers and notes after his death; there were so many that the task took three years to complete.

A member of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) 1957–59 and a Consultant-at-Large of PSAC from 1960 to 1973.

A member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) 1961–77.

A member of the National Commission on Technology, Automation and Economic Progress 1964–66.

A member of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television 1966–67.

A Trustee of the Ford Foundation 1967–1975.

1935 Hood Medal of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain

1938 Elliott Cresson Medal, Franklin Institute of Philadelphia

1940 National Modern Pioneer Award, National Association of Manufacturers

1943 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

1945 Rumford Medal, American Academy of Arts and Sciences