Folding Brownie Camera

Eastman Kodak Folding Brownie camera.

Kodak Brownie cameras were some of the earliest affordable and easy to use cameras.

Although photography was invented in the first half of the 19th century, it was a complicated and expensive activity at first. In 1900, the Kodak company introduced the Brownie, a cheap and simple box camera. The Brownie put photography into the hands of millions of everyday people for the first time, allowing them to easily take snapshots of their daily lives and their families and friends. The name is thought to have been a reference to cartoons of Brownies, a type of folklore spirit, in children’s books by Palmer Cox.

The Brownie was a huge success, with over 100,000 sold in the first year of production. They were followed by millions of improved Brownie branded cameras made over the following decades, which were manufactured in several countries, including Britain. Over the years Kodak produced many different models of Brownie, adding new features and using new materials. Although later model Brownies were quite different to the first ones, they continued to be quite simple cameras, affordable, and marketed to amateur photographers.

Although the first Brownies were box cameras, from 1905 Kodak also produced a range of Folding Brownies like this one. These had a retractable bellows lens and a viewfinder, hidden behind a folding hatch, making them easier to carry around than bulky box cameras. They also offered more advanced features than the first Brownies, with the shutter having settings for instantaneous, bulb, or timed exposures (IBT).