Kodak Kids
Kodak aimed much of their early advertising at children, both boys and girls. In 1930 to celebrate their 50th anniversary, Kodak gave away 500,000 cameras to children born in 1918. The brown box camera, easily identifiable by a commemorative gold seal on its side, periodically comes up for sale on eBay. No doubt some of the original, grateful recipients, now in their eighties, became professional photographers or at least life long customers of Kodak.
In these three snapshots of children holding toys, the little girls appear as proud of their cameras as their friends are of their dolls (below) or a gun (above).
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