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Kodak Brownie cameras photo courtesy of RETROFOCUS

Toronto. …. not the tasty chocolate treat mother used to make. These are cartoon characters created over a century ago and a popular brand of less expensive Kodak cameras as illustrated in this post.

In issue 25-1, a reprint from RETROFOCUS, up Edmonton way, states, “Created by Canadian-born Palmer Cox, the ‘Brownies’ were creatures based on Scottish folklore characters who, in contrast to fairies, were the swarthy folk who came out at night and did chores left unfinished during the day.

“The Brownies were high-spirited folk and mixed their good deeds with a lot of rascally fun. When the American Frank Brownell invented the ‘Brownie’ camera it was decided that Cox’s fairy tale ‘Brownies’ were ideally suited to promote the one-dollar camera in 1900.

“Here are their stories. Palmer Cox’s family had immigrated to the Granby region of Quebec from the Scottish Grampian mountains bringing with them the legends of the ‘night sprites’. These legends became young Cox’s inspiration which he later adapted to the 19th-century world in the illustrated poem ‘The Brownies Ride’ for the St. Nicholas Magazine, February 1883.

“Cox studied at the Granby Academy of Arts, and also later in San Francisco and New York. An adventurous fellow, he apparently tried his luck at gold hunting in California during the mid-1860s. There he also published his first book, California Scenes.

“In 1875 he moved to New York where he worked for Wild Oats, a humourous weekly paper, and became a U.S. citizen. Cox drew the Brownies as bulbous creatures with large eyes, spindly arms and legs – with one exception: the top-hat-and-tails character who throughout Cox’s stories has always had less exaggerated features. Each character had a different name, including: the Chinaman, the Indian, the Policeman, the Canadian, the Dude, the Arab, the Irishman, and even Teddy Roosevelt Brownie. Their success also spawned a theatre play!”

This is followed by a lengthy article written by Philippe Maurice and ©1996. The article is titled, “Palmer Cox –’Brownies’ and Frank Brownell’s Brownie Cameras”. “This article first appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of Time Exposure, the newsletter of the Calgary Photographic Historical Society.”

To see the photographs and read Mr Maurice’s article, members opened the pdf file for issue 25-1 on the free members-only DVD/stick. See above (MEMBERSHIP) or at right (Membership) to join. Email any questions to Lilianne at member@phsc.ca.