Four women with Kodak cameras, including Brownie cameras, c 1900s.

George Eastman marketed the original Brownie to be an inexpensive camera for the mass market; when first introduced in 1900, the price of the camera was just $1(5 shillings in UK). As well as being cheap, the camera was extremely simple to use, even for children. Designed by Frank Brownell, the camera was literally a cardboard box with a wooden end, yet it took perfectly good photographs. Eastman named the camera after characters popularised by the Canadian children's author, Palmer Cox.