Bernice Palmer's Kodak Brownie camera, No. 2A Model B
date: label: date made
content: ca 1912
name: label: user
content: Ellis, Bernice P.
label: maker
content: Eastman Kodak Company
notes: label: Description
content: Sometime around her 17th birthday, Canadian Bernice Palmer received a Kodak Brownie box camera (No. 2A Model), either for Christmas 1911 or for her birthday on 10 January 1912. In early April, she and her mother boarded the Cunard liner <i>Carpathia</i> in New York, for a Mediterranean cruise. <i>Carpathia</i> had scarcely cleared New York, when it received a distress call from the White Star liner <i>Titanic</i> on 14 April. It raced to the scene of the sinking and managed to rescue over 700 survivors from the icy North Atlantic. With her new camera, Bernice took pictures of the iceberg that sliced open the <i>Titanic</i>’s hull below the waterline and also took snapshots of some of the <i>Titanic</i> survivors. Lacking enough food to feed both the paying passengers and <i>Titanic</i> survivors, the <i>Carpathia</i> turned around and headed back to New York to land the survivors. Unaware of the high value of her pictures, Bernice sold publication rights to Underwood & Underwood for just $10 and a promise to develop, print, and return her pictures after use. In 1986, she donated her camera, the pictures and her remarkable story to the Smithsonian.
topic: label: related event
content: The Emergence of Modern America
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Photographic History
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Communications
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content: Sports & Leisure
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content: Transportation
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content: Photography
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content: Titanic
label: Exhibition
content: On the Water
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bernice P. Ellis
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1986.0173.38
label: accession number
content: 1986.0173
label: catalog number
content: 1986.0173.38
objectType: label: Object Name
content: camera
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/4 in x 4 in x 6 1/4 in; 13.335 cm x 10.16 cm x 15.875 cm