American Photography

The Brownie camera was the first camera that could be hand-held and that made the process of capturing photos much easier-and it was cheap and simple enough for children to use.

It all started in 1900, when the Kodak photo company came out with the Brownie camera, it was sold everywhere for just $1.00. People everywhere were taking snap shots of everything-and it was weird because people usually got their photos taken once in a while and it wasn't very common for people to walk around and take pictures. "Kodak claimed in its advertisements that the Brownie camera was "so simple they can easily [be] operated by any school boy or girl" (excerpt from an ad in Cosmopolitan Magazine, July 1900)." (http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/p/brownie.htm) Also, the owner of the camera did not have to invest in the Brownie camera because for 15 cents, Kodak sold a six-cartridge film exposure that could be loaded in daylight-so you did not need a dark room and other materials to load your photos up. The way the Brownie camera looked was rectangular shaped, and it was black and had imitation leather surrounding it. All you had to do to take a photo was to hold it waist height, aim your camera at what image you wanted to shoot, flip a switch and that was it. The Brownie camera changed the future of photography forever and it was said that "the Eastman Kodak Company sold over a quarter of a million Brownies." (http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/p/brownie.htm).