225
In 1896 the factory employed 700 people which had
grown to over 1,000 by 1902.
The Pocket Kodak camera was designed by Brownell
in 1895 and was produced at a cost price of 80¢ and sold
to Kodak for 87¢ who retailed it with fi lm for $5.00.
The Cartridge Kodak followed in 1897. By the end of
the 1890s the Brownell Manufacturing Company was
the largest volume producer of cameras in the world.
Eastman described Brownell as ‘the greatest camera
designer the world has known.’
Brownell was by all accounts a benevolent employer
and offered an employee reward scheme, a hospital,
meals, a lending library and social events. The Brownell
Manufacturing Company (and also the Eastman Kodak
Co) received a silver medal in 1900 at the Universelle
Exposition in Paris from the Department of Social
Economy.
On 5 June 1897 the Eastman Kodak Company
purchased the machinery, tools and fi xtures owned by
Brownell for $23,195.79 in Kodak stock and under a
new agreement Brownell paid rent to Kodak for their
investment and produced cameras at agreed prices with
an aggregate profi t not to exceed 10 percent. The follow-
ing June this was reduced to 5 percent so that Eastman
could keep his camera’s competitively priced.
In 1899 Eastman asked Brownell to design a camera
that was cheaper and easier to use than any previous
Kodak camera. The Brownie was the result, and the
camera was the subject of several United States patents
one of which from 11 April 1899 was of direct relevance.
It was shipped to dealers on 1 February 1900, and by
the time the original Brownie model was superseded
by the No. 1 Brownie in October 1901 around 245,000
had been sold.
Brownell was increasingly being seen as a bottleneck
to further mass camera production. Plans for a new cam-
era building at Kodak’s main site, Kodak Park, were pro-
duced as a way of easing Brownell out but the expense
of the building meant that the existing camera works
were extended and Brownell was retained. Brownell,
although similar in age to Eastman and originally with
the same innovative approach to design which had fi rst
attracted Eastman to him, had not kept up with new
production methods and he was failing to come up with
enough new camera models. He was also seen as a poor
manager and his handling of a labour dispute in 1901
had not impressed Eastman.
On 1 October 1902 Eastman, recognising Brownell’s
past importance to his business, proposed buying him
out from the camera making business for $130,090.64
and to retain him as a camera design expert at the sub-
stantial sum of $12,000 a year. Brownell accepted the
offer and continued to work at Eastman’s new Camera
Works Division of the Eastman Kodak Company.
He fi nally left the Eastman Kodak Company on
1 May 1906 to go into business on his own account.
Between 1885 and 1902 when Brownell left the day-
to-day running of the camera business over sixty new
models and designs had come from him. He had been
responsible for the design and mass-production of all
Kodak’s cameras and was cited as co-patentee for many
cameras including models such as the Panoram and was
behind the camera industry’s most successful camera
ranges: the original Kodak, the Cartridge Kodaks, the
Folding Kodaks, the Pocket Kodaks and the Brownie
camera.
After leaving Eastman Kodak Brownell bought
into a previously existing business and established the
Brownell-Trebert Company between 1906–1907 pro-
ducing marine and automobile motors, and then the F A
Brownell Motor Company from 1908–1913 and fi nally
the Rochester Motors Company Inc. from 1913–1919.
He built a range of 15–160 HP engines and supplied
the fi rst gasoline powered motor yacht for the United
States Navy.
Brownell remained friendly with Eastman until
Eastman’s suicide in 1932 and was involved with several
organisations in Rochester. The economic depression
of the early 1930s had affected his own fi nancial posi-
tion, and at the time of his death on 2 February 1939 in
Rochester he had lost most of his fortune.
Michael Pritchard
See Also: Kodak; and Eastman, George.Further Reading
Frank Brownell Mehlenbacher, ‘Frank A Brownell: Mr Eastman’s
Camera Maker’ in Image: Journal of Photography and Mo-
tion Pictures of the International Museum of Photography at
George Eastman House, 26, no. 2 (June 1983).
Elazabeth Bayer, George Eastman. A Biography. Baltimore, John
Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Douglas Collins, The Story of Kodak. New York: Harry N
Abrams, 1990.
Eaton S Lothrop, A Century of Cameras. Dobbs Ferry, NY:
Morgan & Morgan, 1973.BRUCKMANN VERLAG, FRIEDRICH
(1814–1898)
German fi ne art publisherFriedrich Bruckmann, born to wealthy parents in Deutz
(Cologne) on 4 June 1814, was already 44 years old
when he set up a publishing house for art and science
—the Verlag für Kunst und Wissenschaft—in Frankfurt
am Main in 1858. It was born more from his interest
in art than in publishing. Friedrich’s father, Johann
Wilhelm Bruckmann, was a successful merchant, land