Cartoonist, Writer, Illustrator for Children

They called him “The Brownie Man”

“I was brought up in an old Scottish Settlement, where the people had a quaint notion of a Brownie. The classic gnome like character was supposed to attach itself to a particular household and help the old folks do odd jobs when nobody was looking. That was the idea I developed,” said Palmer Cox, a tall, rugged, warmhearted man.

 

 

  A tall, rugged, warmhearted man, Cox drew brownies on the uprights of the barns in Quebec, where he was born. After he came to America and was, for a time, a newspaper cartoonist, he developed the Brownie character. He dressed them in costumes of different nationalities and professions. He wrote best selling Brownie Books and illustrated stories about them in St. Nicolas, a famous magazine for children. A musical show, “Brownies and Fairies,” written composed and directed by Malcolm Davis, was a hit on Broadway before it moved on to cities like Rochester, New York.