M.E. Heller is the author of a children's book The Return of the Brownies, about the Earth gnomes upon which Palmer Cox based his famous characters.

Palmer Cox, a tall, rugged, warm-hearted man who loved children, created characters based on the mythological brownie gnome. He dressed his little characters in costumes of different nationalities and professions. In books and in a popular children's magazine, St. Nicholas, he told of their helpful activities. His brownies were popular for thirty years, and the first to be copyrighted and licensed to advertise a variety of merchandise, including Ivory Soap and the Brownie Camera.

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M.E. Heller is an artist and scholar who has received national acclaim for her handcrafted dolls. Archetypal and literary characters she has portrayed attracted the attention of the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York and led, in 1986, to the creation of a line of dolls based on the Palmer Cox Brownie. In 1999, she provided dolls and artwork to the Internationasl Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in Rochester for their traveling exhibit in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Brownie Camera. Her research into the characters, mythology, and legends of the brownies reaffirmed her belief in the underlying benevolence of Mother Earth, inspiring the author to write stories about the mythological brownies.

Brownie Dolls And the World of Palmer Cox

A lecture by Wayne Morgan at the opening of the Letita Penn Doll Club of United Federation of Doll Clubs