[3] The Brownie was a basic cardboard box camera with a simple convex-concave lens that took 2+1⁄4-inch square pictures on No.

[6] Named after the Brownie characters popularised by the Canadian writer Palmer Cox, the camera was initially aimed at children.

More than 150,000 Brownie cameras were shipped in the first year of production,[7] and cost a mere 5 shillings in the United Kingdom.

[5] Initially marketed to children, with Kodak using them to popularise photography, it achieved broader appeal as people realised that, although very simple in design and operation, the Brownie could produce very good results under the right conditions.

[10] Another group of people that became posthumously known for their huge photo archive is the Nicholas II of Russia family, especially its four daughters (known as the OTMA sisters).

Having written an article in the 1940s for amateur photographers suggesting an expensive camera was unnecessary for quality photography, Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy used a Brownie camera to stage a carefully posed snapshot of 17-year-old Pat Stewart,[13] a Tiller Girls dancer, with her friend, Wendy Clarke, sitting on railings of North Pier,[13] Blackpool, for the cover of Picture Post.