Easy to use and affordable, Kodak's Brownie camera made photography available to everyone. Here, the man on the left holds the new Brownie camera, circa 1900. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In the 1800s, before the Brownie camera, photography was a difficult and often expensive process. This process made it hard for ordinary people to take pictures. When the Eastman Kodak Company introduced its new Brownie cameras in February of 1900, photography became available to everyone, including children. In fact, the Brownie was designed and marketed especially for kids.

The Brownie camera was very easy to use. It was a simple box with an opening in the front for light to reach the film, a small viewing screen on top, and a switch to expose the film. The film came on easy-to-load rolls. Kodak named the Brownie camera after popular characters created by Palmer Cox (1840–1924), a children's...