American History

As Andy stated above, the processing was very difficult. Chemical temperatures had to be about plus or minus 1°. It remained that way well into the 80s, until Cibachrome came along for color printing. B&W was a lot more tolerant of temperature variations.

That was the beauty of those one hour photo processing machines that were developed in the early eighties. They automatically controlled the process so that anyone could run them and get good results. I spent a fortune in those places. Getting color photos back in an hour seemed like a miracle to me.

B&W was a lot less expensive. I used to buy it in 100 ft. Rolls and load it into the 35mm film cannisters myself. I figured that it cost me about one cent a frame to purchase, develop and print proof sheets.

An interesting side note: 35mm cameras were developed to use the same film stock that was produced for the motion picture industry. Prior to that most photos were shot with 4x5 and 8x10 film sheets, 120 film (6x6 cm), or similar formats. 35mm SLRs really became popular in the U.S. during the Korean War when G.I.s brought them home from Japan. I believe Leica rangefinder cameras were in use during WWII. I think Robert Capa was using a Leica at Normandy Beach, but I could be wrong.