{"id":31995,"date":"2025-07-28T01:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T05:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=31995"},"modified":"2025-07-26T23:50:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T03:50:55","slug":"another-kind-of-brownie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/another-kind-of-brownie\/","title":{"rendered":"another kind of brownie …"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kodak Brownie cameras photo courtesy of RETROFOCUS<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. …. 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.<\/p>\n

In issue 25-1, a reprint from RETROFOCUS, up Edmonton way, states, “Created by\u00a0Canadian-born\u00a0Palmer Cox, the ‘Brownies’ were\u00a0creatures based on\u00a0Scottish folklore\u00a0characters who, in\u00a0contrast to fairies,\u00a0were the swarthy folk\u00a0who came out at night\u00a0and did chores left unfinished during the day.<\/p>\n

“The Brownies were high-spirited folk and mixed their good deeds\u00a0with a lot of rascally fun. When\u00a0the American Frank Brownell\u00a0invented the ‘Brownie’ camera\u00a0it was decided that Cox\u2019s fairy\u00a0tale ‘Brownies’ were ideally\u00a0suited to promote the one-dollar\u00a0camera in 1900.<\/p>\n

“Here are their stories.\u00a0Palmer Cox\u2019s family had immigrated\u00a0to the Granby region of Quebec from the\u00a0Scottish Grampian mountains bringing\u00a0with them the legends of the ‘night sprites’. These legends became young Cox\u2019s inspiration which he later adapted to the 19th-century world in the illustrated\u00a0poem ‘The Brownies Ride’ for the St.\u00a0Nicholas Magazine, February 1883.<\/p>\n

“Cox\u00a0studied at the Granby Academy of Arts,\u00a0and also later in San Francisco and New\u00a0York. An adventurous fellow, he apparently tried his luck at gold hunting in\u00a0California during the mid-1860s. There he\u00a0also published his first book, California\u00a0Scenes.<\/p>\n

“In 1875 he moved to New York\u00a0where he worked for Wild Oats, a\u00a0humourous weekly paper, and became a\u00a0U.S. citizen. Cox drew the Brownies as\u00a0bulbous creatures with large eyes, spindly\u00a0arms and legs \u2013 with one exception: the\u00a0top-hat-and-tails character who throughout\u00a0Cox\u2019s stories has always had less exaggerated features. Each character had a different name, including: the Chinaman, the\u00a0Indian, the Policeman, the Canadian, the\u00a0Dude, the Arab, the Irishman, and even\u00a0Teddy Roosevelt Brownie. Their success\u00a0also spawned a theatre play!”<\/p>\n

This is followed by a lengthy article written by Philippe Maurice and \u00a91996. The article is titled, “Palmer Cox \u2013’Brownies’ and Frank Brownell\u2019s Brownie Cameras”. “This article first appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of Time Exposure, <\/i>the newsletter\u00a0of the Calgary Photographic Historical Society.”<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[2017,837,398,2786,4713],"class_list":["post-31995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-article","tag-calgary","tag-camera","tag-edmonton","tag-reprint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31999,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31995\/revisions\/31999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}