If you asked people in the s, s, or even s what life would be like in the year , a few probably would have had some pretty interesting answers for you. Futuristic clothing, spaceship-like cars, and advanced robotic systems to handle even the most ordinary daily tasks may have been among the responses. But now that we are well into the 21st century, we take a moment to reflect on an object that helped to usher in the beginning of a previous century.
The Kodak "Brownie" camera made its debut at the turn of the twentieth century and sold for one dollar. One hundred thousand of them were purchased during the first year alone. The Brownie helped to put photography into the hands of amateurs and allowed the middle class to take their own "snapshots" as well. Eastman Kodak introduced the new Brownie dollar box camera in ; the release was supported by a major advertising campaign.
The name "Brownie" was chosen primarily because of the popularity of a children's book of cartoons of the same name, and partly because the camera was initially manufactured for Eastman by Frank Brownell of Rochester, New York. For years prior to Kodak's popularization of photography, the missing piece in its progress was the invention of a new artificial substance called celluloid.
In , John Wesley Hyatt invented and registered the name "celluloid. For some years, Hyatt used celluloid only for making solid objects. Within two years, Eastman had invented and patented a new machine for coating the glass plates. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. Kodak Brownie Starlet, By: Eric Schewe.
December 26, December 20, Share Tweet Email Print. Get Our Newsletter. Have a correction or comment about this article? Please contact us. Brownell, the Brownie camera was little more than a simple black rectangular cardboard box covered in imitation leather with nickeled fittings.
To take a "snapshot," all one had to do was pop in a cartridge of film, close the door, hold the camera at waist height, aim it by looking through the viewfinder at the top, and turn a switch. Kodak claimed in its advertisements that the Brownie camera was "so simple they can easily [be] operated by any school boy or girl. Plus, for only 15 cents, a Brownie camera owner could buy a six-exposure film cartridge that could be loaded in daylight.
For an extra 10 cents a photo plus 40 cents for developing and postage, users could send their film to Kodak for development, eliminating the need to invest in a darkroom and special equipment and materials—much less learn how to use them. Kodak heavily marketed the Brownie camera to children. Its ads, which ran in popular magazines rather than just trade journals, also included what would soon become a series of popular Brownie characters, elf-like creatures created by Palmer Cox.
Children under the age of 15 were also urged to join the free Brownie Camera Club, which sent all members a brochure on the art of photography and advertised a series of photo contests in which kids could earn prizes for their snapshots.
In just the first year after introducing the Brownie, the Eastman Kodak Company sold over a quarter of a million of its little cameras. However, the small cardboard box did more than just help make Eastman a rich man. It forever changed the culture. Soon, handheld cameras of all sorts would hit the market, making possible vocations like photojournalist and fashion photographer, and giving artists yet another medium with which to express themselves.
The Brownie was an affordable and handy camera series designed to popularise photography. Mass-produced Brownie cameras being packed and shipped Source: bbc. As Kodak was essentially a photographic film-making company, the stroke of genius behind the Brownie series was that the handy cameras created a huge demand for films by allowing people to take pictures casually, or even indulgently. Manufactured for around 80 years, the Brownie series, released in different models, turned photography into an everyday activity and captured raw, candid accounts of the 20th century experience.
With her new Brownie camera, gifted around her birthday in January, Bernice captured some of the Titanic survivors that were rushed onto the Carpathia as well as pictures of the iceberg that tragically sunk the mighty Titanic. George A. The handy and sturdy Brownie cameras, which had naturally become a utilitarian part of life, also went along to battlegrounds. In , Brownie camera pictures taken by a British soldier, Hubert Berry Ottaway, found in a rusty tin box almost 95 years after they were taken, were restored and developed by his grandson.
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