Edwin H. Land, one of the world's preeminent inventors and the visionary founder of Polaroid Corp., died yesterday after a lengthy illness. He was 81 and lived in Cambridge.

A leading figure in industry for more than 50 years, Mr. Land held 537 patents, second only to Thomas A. Edison. He was best known as the inventor of instant photography, but his contributions spanned the worlds of art, science, business and the social environment.

As the founder of Polaroid, Mr. Land set the pace for high-technology startups and helped drive an economic renaissance in New England. At its peak in the 1960s, Polaroid was lionized as a model corporation, admired for its innovations and enlightened social conscience.

The company mirrored the man.

Mr. Land was small in stature, but his presence could magically silence a crowded hall. He gave the world countless creations, but those who knew him say his greatest asset was his own persona.

Ask associates to describe Mr. Land and they grope for words to describe the inventor's larger-than-life personality. He was a humanist, they say, with the genius of Einstein, the sensitivity of an artist and the exuberance of a small child.

An intense and energetic man, Mr. Land was also kind and generous. He was eloquent and charming, witty and excitable. He was strong-willed, inner-directed and convinced he was infallible. He was also self-absorbed and egotistical.

Meticulous in manner, Mr. Land was part thespian and part Barnum, and fit neatly into the corporate statesman's costume. He founded Polaroid in a Cambridge garage in 1935 and built it into a $1.4 billion business by 1980, the year he stepped down as chief executive officer, at age 70. Under his leadership, Polaroid grew from a small lens maker to a company that employed 18,000 people. Polaroid was a Wall Street darling in the 1960s, a star among America's go-go companies.

Mr. Land could hold an audience rapt with his dramatic, precise, poetic prose, accented with aphorisms known as "Landisms," such as "Don't do anything that someone else can do."

`You were immediately aware of a first-rate brain'

His most ardent admirers describe Mr. Land in almost mythical terms. "I don't think anyone who ever met him has ever forgotten it," said Robert Palmer, a former director of corporate relations at Polaroid, who worked for Mr. Land for 25 years. "You were immediately aware of a first-rate brain -- maybe the best brain you ever saw."

"He was a very brilliant and wonderful man -- exceedingly bright and knowlegeable, and with great curiosity," said Saul G. Cohen, professor emeritus in the department of chemistry at Brandeis University, who worked for Mr. Land from 1940 to 1945.

But there was a dark side, too. He was autocratic. He insisted on running Polaroid the way he wanted it run, even if it meant losing money and talented people. He was stubborn and arrogant, and his refusal to listen to criticism and concede that he might be wrong ultimately cost him control of the company he created and loved.

He drove his workers hard, sometimes too hard, and could be cranky when roadblocks got in his way. A perfectionist, Mr. Land insisted on control. He personally planned Polaroid's exhaustively rehearsed annual meetings and dazzled shareholders with his latest inventions -- sometimes recklessly prematurely.

"He could be too radical and manipulative and work people to exhaustion, although no one ever worked harder than he," wrote Peter Wensberg, in a 1987 biography, "Land's Polaroid."

Most people remember Mr. Land as an exciting, extraordinary human being, whose genuine concern for others nurtured the spirit. His effect on people was immediate and intense. "He had an aura about him that is hard to describe," said Howard Rogers, a long-time associate.

It was in intimate settings that Mr. Land worked his greatest magic. People say he had the ability to look inside them and to stand in their shoes. "When he was talking to someone, he thought about what that person was like," said Palmer. "He was always making connections and reflecting."

Mr. Land made people feel good and proud and important, said Palmer. "He managed to take you immediately to his level, so you had this unbelievable feeling of being an equal -- which, of course, you weren't." Not everyone caught the inventor's interest, however. "If he was bored, he would not engage," said Palmer. But anyone who did attract Mr. Land's attention "could not be immune" to his charm, Palmer said.

Intuitive and impulsive, Mr. Land judged people instantly -- as Howie Rogers discovered when he interviewed for a job in 1934. Mr. Land had recently launched a company called Land-Wheelright Laboratories, the precursor to Polaroid, with partner George Wheelright 3d, to market Mr. Land's first invention, a polarizing system that reduced automobile headlight glare. Mr. Land needed someone to run the lab, and Rogers was a candidate.

Rogers agreed to meet Mr. Land in a soda fountain on Dartmouth Street in Boston, across the street from the lab. The meeting was brief. "He sort of looked into me," Rogers recalled, "and just assumed that I would show up." Rogers showed up -- and remained with Mr. Land for 49 years.

Saul Cohen's first interview with Mr. Land was roughly equal in duration but more intense. The strong-willed Cohen recalled waiting in an anteroom and "working up a head of steam" because Mr. Land was late. Five minutes passed before Mr. Land appeared. "We sat there, and neither of us said a word," Cohen recalled. After a long period of silence, Mr. Land said, "OK."

"OK what?" said Cohen.

"OK, come to work at the corporation," Mr. Land replied.

"Is there anything special you'd like me to do?" asked Cohen.

"If you don't know what you want to work on, don't come to Polaroid," Mr. Land snapped. Cohen took the job, and though he left five years later to become dean at Brandeis University, he and Mr. Land remained friends for life.

`Never accepted what everybody knew'

One of the traits that made Mr. Land a great creator was his refusal to recognize limitations, in himself or in others. An expansive thinker, "he never accepted what everybody knew," said Rogers.

Mr. Land was brilliant. Trained in physics, he had the ability to master any subject quickly. He had a knack for asking penetrating questions on matters new to him, often revealing a firmer grasp than the specialist.

Mr. Land hired scientists who were awarded Nobel Prizes, but he also hired nonscientists, believing that they could be made into great researchers. Many flourished under Mr. Land. "He liked young people, and stimulated young men and women to get excited," observed Palmer.

Palmer, who said he "grew up" at Polaroid, recalled the excitement of his first meeting with Mr. Land. A newcomer to the company, he turned a corner one day and ran into Mr. Land, showering the inventor with coffee. Unfazed, Mr. Land introduced himself. "We haven't met," he said to Palmer. "I'm Din Land." (Din was Mr. Land's nickname from childhood, resulting from his inability to pronounce Edwin.)

Flustered, Palmer introduced himself, and Mr. Land promptly hustled him into his office. "Come here, I want to show you something," Mr. Land said. The inventor then showed the rookie a top-secret early Polaroid color print.

Late for a meeting with a Polaroid vice president, a stunned Palmer called the waiting executive from Mr. Land's office. "I'm with Dr. Land," he began, "and I'm looking at a color print . . ."

Like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Mr. Land motioned to Palmer excitedly. "Oh, don't tell him that!" he whispered. "He'll get very upset."

Mr. Land had no patience for bureaucracy, Palmer said. He recalled the time he presented a new job application form for Mr. Land's approval. Mr. Land stared at it. "This is dreadful," he said, holding the form like a dead fish. "If this form had been used for me, I would never have been hired here. It asks if I'm a college graduate." (Mr. Land dropped out of Harvard one semester short of graduation.) "It asks about job objective -- I don't have one. If you had sent me out on interviews here, you would have gotten replies saying, `He's very bright, but not right for my area.' "

Unconventional thinking

It was Mr. Land's unconventional thinking that led to the progressive management practices implemented at Polaroid over the years, including job rotation, profit sharing, reimbursement for education and a powerful employees' committee that kept unions at bay. "He experimented with everything," said Palmer. "Human resources, job enlargement. He told people: `Don't be caught in a resume or job description. Develop it yourself.' "

Mr. Land fostered a paternal environment at Polaroid, based heavily on job security. Later, some of his programs came back to haunt the company. Putting employee satisfaction first was an admirable concept, but it took a toll on Polaroid as the pace of technology quickened and competition intensified. One Harvard professor who studied Polaroid concluded that the company was "too liberal" and that some employees took advantage of that.

Mr. Land's profound sensitivity and insight into people's motivations were part of what made him larger than life. So was his ability to get things done. Palmer had occasion to witness the synergy of these traits while he was working in personnel at Polaroid.

Mr. Land had final approval over the hire of any salaried employee, and one day, Palmer presented him with the records of a recent graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was seeking employment at Polaroid. Mr. Land looked at the papers and turned to Palmer, horrified by what he saw. "You must be very embarrassed!" he said.

Baffled, Palmer remained silent.

"Look at the papers of this young man!" Mr. Land cried. "He flunked physics! You are not to know his failures. We have to do something about this."

Mr. Land thereupon picked up the phone and called Julius A. Stratton, then president of MIT. "I'm sitting here with Bob Palmer," Mr. Land said to Stratton, who did not know Palmer from Adam. "Bob and I are upset about your degree program, because you have failures listed on degrees.

"What you want to do," Mr. Land lectured Stratton, "is to allow your graduate to say, `Hello, Mr. Palmer, I am successful.' " When Stratton said he would look into it "next year," Mr. Land, a member of the board of trustees at MIT, protested. "Oh no!" he said. "I think we ought to talk about this at the next board meeting." The topic was added to the agenda.

Mr. Land's energy and his penchant for experimentation knew no bounds. He sought to make Polaroid "a noble prototype of industry" and used the company as a laboratory to test hypotheses about what makes people tick.

The corporation as `guest of the community'

The inventor cared deeply about Polaroid's role in the larger scheme of things, and once summoned Palmer to the office at 2 a.m. to discuss what role Polaroid should play in the community. Mr. Land had three points he wanted to make, Palmer recalled. First, "A company must learn that it is not the community." Second, "A company must learn that it is not a partner with a community." And third, "A company has to learn that it is the guest of the community." The third point became the foundation of corporate relations at Polaroid under Mr. Land.

Polaroid proved to be a generous guest, and demanded nothing in return. The company built a fertility clinic in Central Square and a manufacturing facility in Roxbury. Other firms might have trumpeted their contributions, but Mr. Land insisted there be no announcements, calling it "elitist" and "an ego trip."

Mr. Land's humanism and experimentation extended beyond Polaroid to society as a whole. He enthusiastically supported an experimental program to hire former prisoners -- and came up with the strategy that ultimately made it work after three earlier attempts failed. Mr. Land correctly guessed that the program was failing because it was being isolated and treated as a program. His solution was to hire the prisoners quietly, one by one, just as Polaroid would hire any employee.

In light of Mr. Land's contributions as the founder and guiding spirit at Polaroid, it seems unthinkable that he could have left the company on bad terms. Sadly, it happened. Profits sagged in the 1970s, and Mr. Land, the loser in a power struggle, gave up operating control in 1975 to William J. McCune Jr.

Mr. Land's fatal flaw was that he cared more about inventing and individualism than about making money. Wall Street was not amused by his most famous Landism: "The bottom line is in heaven."

In an earlier day, Mr. Land's humanistic goals had been able to coexist with the profit motive at Polaroid. But the world had changed. Polaroid's dominant shareholders were no longer the enthusiastic men and women he enchanted at the annual meetings. They were anonymous institutions, and they wanted results, fast.

Mr. Land refused to respond or was incapable of responding to Wall Street's increasingly strong role in running corporate America. He had become a businessman in a different age, after all, when a corporation could afford to follow the course he outlined in 1944. "Very often," he wrote then, "the best way to find out whether something is worth making is to make it, distribute it, and then to see, after the product has been around for a few years, whether it was worth the trouble."

Clouded departure closed an era

In 1980, a year after Polaroid was forced to write off Mr. Land's instant movie system at a cost of $68.5 million, Mr. Land resigned as chief executive officer. Two years later, he gave up the chairman's title, and in 1985 he sold his remaining stock in Polaroid.

Mr. Land's departure marked the end of an era, not just for Polaroid, but for American industry. The nature and pace of technology and business had changed dramatically after World War II. Innovation before profit was no longer an admirable goal; it was unacceptable.

After he left Polaroid, Mr. Land continued his work at the Rowland Institute for Science, a nonprofit research center he founded in 1980. He told an interviewer he was thrilled to be pursuing basic research, but others said Mr. Land was deeply hurt.

Mr. Land kept his feelings to himself. For all the warmth and good feeling he gave people, he was a private person, difficult to know.

Some came closer than others. Saul Cohen, whose first meeting with Mr. Land in 1940 had been a standoff between two stubborn men, recalled visiting Mr. Land at the Rowland two years before his death. Somehow, Cohen became the subject of the conversation, and the talk became very personal.

Later, Mr. Land walked Cohen to his car. "You know," he told his old friend, "I was waiting for this conversation for 45 years."

Cohen felt 10 feet tall.

Edwin Herbert Land was born in Bridgeport, Conn., on May 7, 1909. He leaves his wife, Helen (Maiselen), and two daughters, Jennifer and Valerie.

Funeral services will be private.

PHOTO; CAPTION: 1. EDWIN H. LAND: A larger-than-life personality 2. Edwin H. Land, chairman of the board and director of research of Polaroid Corp.

Boston Globe Newspaper

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