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The Brownie Camera-4

   Eastman's Brownie campaign was undoubtedly successful. The company proclaimed it so to its dealers 48, and in October 1900, announced the No. 2 Brownie for 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 in exposures. 49 This camera, with built-in viewfinders, and using a size film eventually designated No. 120, was the beginning of the Brownie camera line. Subsequent sizes of the cardboard-box Brownie were the No. 2A, for 2-1/2 x 4-1/4 in. exposures (1907); No. 3 for 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 in exposures (November 1908); No. 0 for 1-5/8 x 2-1/2 in exposures (May 1914); and the No. 2C for 2-7/8 x 4-7/8 in. exposures (July 1917). 50 In April 1904 a Folding Brownie Camera (fig.11-12) was announced 51 This camera was also designated a No. 2 because it shared the same film size (No. 120) with its non-folding predecessor. This folding camera was also a forerunner of a series, with the No. 3, 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 in exposures, introduced in April 1905; the No. 3A, 3-1/4 x 5-1/2 in. exposures in April 1909; and the No. 2A, 2-1/2 x 4-1/4 in. exposures, in February 1910. 52 The No. 2 Stereo Brownie, for paired 3-1/4 x 2-1/2 in. exposures, was a form of folding Brownie also announced in April 1905. 53 Advertising efforts for Brownies were always considerable, but in 1903 Kodak followed its successful 'Kodak Girl' campaign with 'The Boy With A Brownie', illustrations showing a young boy with such 'boyish' things as a kite or a fishing rod and, of course, a Brownie camera. 54 In an effort to increase children's involvement in photography, a Brownie Developing Machine. (fig.13)(fig.14), for the easy processing of negatives, and patterned after the Kodak Developing Machine, was introduced in 1902. 55
   The first and closest imitation of the Brownie camera was the Anthony & Scovill Co.'s Buster Brown camera, introduced in three		 different sizes in 1906. 56 These cameras bore the name of a camera, a boy who had a dog named Tige, created by Richard F. Outcault for the New York Herald in which the drawings first appeared in 1903. As with the Brownie camera, the Buster Brown illustrations appeared only on the boxes in which the camera came. While Kodak had to test the waters with its various Brownie models, Anthony & Scovill had Kodak's example from which they could profit. Ultimately they, too, marketed a line of box and folding Buster Brown cameras, in a variety of sizes. 57 The line was discontinued in the late 1920s. Other, shorter-lived, followers were the Pixie camera of the Gundlach-Manhattan Optician Co., named after the little imps whose images appeared in camera advertisements and on the packaging. 58 Another box camera was the Kewpie camera, made exclusively for Searts Roebuck & Co. by the Conley Camera Co. 59 There is no evidence that illustrations of Kewpies, later made popular by Rose O'Neill, ever were associated with the cameras in either advertising or packaging. 60
   As the years passed, the variety of Brownie cameras increased. Such features as metal bodies, coloured exteriors, plastic bodies, flash synchronization, built-in flash reflectors, and large reflex style 'brilliant' viewfinders appeared at various times 61, but two things remained constant. Brownies retained their essential simplicity of design and operation, and their low price. By the time the line was discontinued in the 1960s, almost 70 different styles and sizes of cameras bearing the Brownie name had been produced in America alone 62 In 1900 dealers were urged to 'Plant the Brownie acorn and the Kodak oak will grow' 63, but this little camera produced a family tree of its own, one which thrived for over 60 years.


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