Polaroid 95A instant picture camera

The Polaroid 95A is an instant self-developing camera first marketed in 1954 by the Polaroid Corporation, the American firm founded by Edwin Herbert Land in 1937. This model succeeded the Polaroid 95, designed by Land in 1948. Its system was inspired by laboratory-type view cameras made as early as 1850, which gave the operator the possibility of using the chamber to both expose and develop the plate after taking the photograph. Land’s innovation was to automate the process. This camera was offered to the Musée des Arts et Métiers in 1961 by the Polaroid Corporation, which Maurice Daumas, well aware of its spectacular properties, thanked as follows: ‘In our photography section, we are happy […] to be able to present a camera as original as the Polaroid, with which we will be able to give public demonstrations during guided tours of this section.’