Brownie Reflex 20 Camera

Brownie Reflex 20 camera, with case; parts made by Eastman Kodak and assembed by Kodak Limited.

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.

This is a Brownie Reflex 20 camera, one of the more sophisticated Brownies, but still a fairly basic camera compared to more expensive brands. Unlike most Brownies, it is a pseudo-twin-lens reflex camera, rather than a simple box camera. This type of camera has a large reflecting viewfinder mounted above the camera lens. This allows the photographer to hold the camera at waist height and look down onto the large viewfinder window to carefully compose their picture in the reflex image, with the camera held steadily. It also features an adjustable focus and the option to attach a flash.