Hannibal Goodwin

Hannibal Goodwin (1822 to 1900) was an American Episcopal priest and amateur photographer who, in the late 1870s, developed a method for making transparent, flexible roll film from a nitrocellulose base. He was prompted by a lack of suitable Bible pictures for his Sunday school classes and found glass-plate photography cumbersome, and he was dissatisfied with George Eastman Kodak camera because it had to be returned to the factory for processing. Goodwin made his film by dissolving nitrocellulose in nitrobenzole, thinning the mixture with alcohol and pouring it onto glass, so that once the liquids evaporated a film remained that could be coated with emulsion. He applied for a patent in 1887, and when the Patent Office declared an interference with Kodak it ruled in his favor. After his death his estate won a settlement of five million dollars from Kodak in his infringement suit.