During the Big One, WW II, US manufacturers threw their expertise into supporting the
lucrative contracts of the war effort. They just knew in their hearts Truth, Justice,
and The American Way would defeat the Evil Axis, so they were using this hiatus in
commerce to plan their post war strategy. The research boom funded by the War
Department was finding all sorts of things the public could be convinced they needed.
Big corporation ran ads during the war touting their efforts for the cause, and adding a
tag line alluding to, or outright promising, bigger and better ways to spend those War Bonds.
After the Victory people believed most anything was now possible, they had seen and
heard what science could do, so a Popular Science article in May of 1947 promising a
camera which would give you a finished picture in a minute, was easy to believe it
would come someday, along with flying cars and self cleaning houses.
We’re still waiting for the flying cars, and self cleaning houses, but in February of 1949
there it was, the Polaroid Land Camera with a picture in one minute.
Now it’s hard to fathom what a miracle it was, not having to wait for the drugstore to
send out the film and hope the pictures came out. You could have god-like powers for
less than $100, of course that’s almost $1,100 in today’s money.
The other thing about the normal system was if you snapped a picture showing a little
too much skin, it would likely be added to the photo lab’s extensive collection while
you had to assumed it had been censored, and if you bitched they'd let the police decide.
Polaroid let everyone become a pornographer.
The couple that moved into the apartment across the hall on returning from their
honeymoon, had bought a Polaroid at the hotel gift shop in the Poconos. They were
nice enough to lend it to us so we could make pornography too.
I didn’t buy one because I could take better pictures with the Nikon, and the Lesbian who
owned the one hour photo service would develop anything for me because she wanted
to see them. Probably kept copies too.
Digital made everything moot but during that 50 year interim it was a wonderful
help to the impatient and the horny.
Ed Land was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, a medal created by
JFK who knew a thing or two about pornography.