Copyright © 2005 David Silver. THE 1896 POCKET ZAR BEFORE THE BROWNIE, A CARDBOARD BOX CAMERA FOR THE MASSES! by David Silver A perfect Pocket Zar boxed set from 1897. Much has been written about the impact of Eastman Kodak's original Brownie camera when it entered the market in 1900. Historians have noted Frank A. Brownell's ingenious cardboard box design, the attractive faux leather covering, the simple shutter, and, most of all, the amazing $1 price tag. For the first time, as the advertisements claimed, children and people with limited income could afford a camera of their own, and the world of photography was open to everyone. Yet history often forgets that there were earlier similar attempts to make photography available to the masses, that the concept of a little black cardboard box camera was not Brownell's alone, and that the Pocket Zar of 1896 was one of the more remarkable of those prior efforts. The Zar Camera Company of Chicago was established in a factory at 23 Quincy Street during the spring of 1896. Located in the heart of the city's expanding photographic industry, the fledgling firm was founded as a collective endeavor by a small group of investors and engineers who would further labor and speculate in other important local businesses, including the Western Camera Manufacturing Company around the block at 84 Adams Street and the nearby Vive Camera Company at the corner of State and Washington streets. While apparently intended as a convenient secondary site for eventually outsourcing the assembly of Cyclone, Vive, and later Yale plate cameras, Zar also functioned independently and soon introduced its own notable little camera on which it based the company name. An early 1897 Vive camera, possibly a product of the Zar factory. The 1896 Pocket Zar was a miniature glass plate box camera that brought an intriguing new dimension to the concept of simplicity in photographic design. The body was entirely constructed in cardboard, a material never used to such an extent in cameras before, and assembled in three sections. The front part was a square panel to protect the lens and shutter, and was attached by a pair of tacks. The center section was the bulk of the camera, supporting the spring activated shutter and the single element meniscus lens. The rear piece was a boxy cover that slid over the back. All of this was finished attractively with a thin paper application simulating fine grain leather. Measuring only 3 3/4 inches long, 2 1/4 inches high, and 2 1/4 inches wide, this was truly a "pocket" sized camera. What's more, it weighed a mere 3 ounces. Its only decorative flourish was a nicely embossed "Zar Camera" in fancy lettering on the back. The original Pocket Zar of 1896. Using individual 2 by 2 inch glass plates, the Pocket Zar was as simple in function as it was in appearance. In a darkroom the back of the camera was removed, a single glass plate, made especially for the Pocket Zar, was dropped into the back, and all of this slid onto the rear of the body. Yes, the glass plate was held there only by the pressure fit of the back against the rear flange of the body! To expose the picture the photographer first placed a finger over the lens opening, with the other hand pulled and held the shutter release lever to one side, removed the obstructing finger, aimed the camera, and let go of the lever. Yes, the shutter was neither self-capping nor self-setting! After exposure the photographer returned to a darkroom to store the negative for later processing and to reload the camera. Simplicity, thy name is Pocket Zar! The sinple sliding box construction of the Pocket Zar. The original inspiration for the Pocket Zar is an issue for debate, since the company paid greater attention to its manufacturing obligations with other firms, but it's clear that the camera met with reasonable success. Despite its Spartan details and extreme cost cutting features, it was a surprisingly well-made and sturdy little performer. A very similar product, the Souvenir Camera, was offered through the Vive Camera Company beginning early in 1897, for direct sales and premium giveaways. Although it bore the unmistakable mark of Zar construction, in some ways it was not quite the same quality and is usually found today with loose covering or saggy cardboard. An original box of glass plates for the Pocket Zar. The real genius of the Pocket Zar was in its cost and presentation. It's true, and still remarkable, that Eastman Kodak only charged a dollar for their original Brownie camera in 1900, but in 1896 the Pocket Zar cost a dollar as well, and with free delivery! A six shot roll of film for the Brownie was only fifteen cents, but a box of one dozen glass plates for the Pocket Zar was just twenty cents! What's more, for an additional dollar you could buy an entire developing outfit for the Pocket Zar that included a ruby darkroom lamp, two trays, a bottle of developer, a package of fixing powder, a printing frame, two dozen sheets of printing paper, and a dozen pieces of photographic card stock! In this way the concept of an affordable camera for the masses was taken to a level never achieved before, and hardly matched by the later Brownie. Detail of original box for Pocket Zar with Western label. In 1897 the Western Camera Manufacturing Company saw promising initial success with its Cyclone series of glass plate box cameras. Later that year, as the major investor, it took control of the Zar Camera Company to simplify the chain of command and continued the Pocket Zar under the Western label through its Adams Street location. The camera remained in production with Western when they established a larger factory towards the end of 1898 further down Adams Street on the corner of Wabash Avenue, but that was the end of the road for the Pocket Zar. In 1899 Western joined in the creation of the mammoth Rochester Optical and Camera Company, a consolidation of several established yet struggling photographic firms, and it was decided to abandon the Pocket Zar and its facilities in favor of the more upscale Cyclone models when they moved their industrial base to New York. The irony of this decision is that these companies felt the necessity to share their resources specifically to compete with Eastman Kodak's growing dominance in the American photographic field. However, the next year Kodak introduced their first Brownie camera, a veritable clone of the neglected Pocket Zar, which proved to be among the most successful and best selling camera lines in history, and possibly the final nail in the collective coffin of those other companies. In a final coup, George Eastman purchased the Rochester consortium in 1903, it became a subsidiary manufacturer for Kodak, and the Cyclone line was among the cameras immediately discontinued. An 1898 example of the Cyclone camera from Western. In the meantime, although they lacked the resources to market a camera of their own, the remnants of the old Quincy Street factory in Chicago survived a little longer. While the Vive Camera Company, more famous for their Vive dark-sleeve box designs, continued to requisition the Souvenir Camera for a short time after Western left town, there were at least two other endeavors that advanced the Pocket Zar's legacy. Both were introduced in 1899 and shared a slightly modified, in fact further simplified, application of the Pocket Zar's all cardboard box construction, as well as an improved pivoting shutter. One was the Little Wonder from the mysterious Enterprise Camera and Optical Company, a short-lived Chicago firm that defied all historical research and may very well have been a final brief fling by Zar itself. The other is the simplest Yale model sold through the Yale Camera Company located at 37 Randolph Street, just a few blocks away from the old Zar and Western sites. The Yale camera was available for several years into the 20th century, but soon after succumbed to the rapidly growing popularity of simple roll film cameras, and in particular the success and influence of the Brownie. The Yale camera of 1900, perhaps the last link to the Pocket Zar. The original Brownie camera of 1900 improved on the Pocket Zar's cost-cutting cardboard concept with the addition of a self-capping reciprocating shutter and the use of roll film rather than glass plates. Otherwise, it was so similar in size and detail that for a very brief period it even copied the sliding back section of the earlier camera until Eastman Kodak decided to abandon that feature for a more durable rear door. Frankly, Mr. Brownell, the similarities were all too obvious! The Kodak Brownie Camera of 1900 with accessory viewfinder. There's no doubt that the Brownie deserves its place as one of the most significant advancements in the evolution of the camera, an innovation that shook photography to its core and drove the field forward, but we should never forget its predecessors and prior influences. Among those, the Pocket Zar stands as one of the most important. Well before the Brownie, it paved the way to offering affordable photography to the masses, and today represents an especially rare and valuable artifact for collectors and historians. The 1896 Pocket Zar imprint. Copyright © 2005 David Silver. All rights reserved. This article first appeared, in slightly edited form, in the June 2005 (issue #156) Camera Shopper magazine. If you'd like to reprint the article, acquire secondary rights, or inquire on the availability of new articles, please feel free to contact the author at silver@well.com, thank you! BACK to the International Photographic Historical Organization article page! GO TO the International Photographic Historical Organization home page! CONTACT the author, David Silver, for more information!