National Museum of Play Online Collections

#1 Brownie

camera

1907

Having simplified the art of photography in the 1890s by promising consumers that "you push the button, we do the rest," the Eastman Kodak Company revolutionized the industry in 1900 with the introduction of its Brownie box camera for an astonishingly affordable $1. The company claimed that "any school boy or girl" could operate the simple, inexpensive camera. No longer was photography limited to professionals - now anyone could take a camera anywhere, making way for the snapshot craze that swept the country in the 1910s. Taking the industry by storm, nearly a quarter-million Brownie cameras were sold during the first year alone. Their popularity was due in no small part to the success of Eastman Kodak's advertising campaign. Marketing the camera primarily for children, the company borrowed Palmer Cox's easily recognizable "Brownie" characters. Already appearing in numerous books and printed on children's toys of all kinds, the mythical sprites were about as familiar to kids as Mickey Mouse would become in the 1930s. The company even set up a popular Brownie Club for junior photographers and offered prizes for the best pictures taken with a Brownie.

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