Marie Van Brittan Brown
By: Praise Erianamie
Over 24 million households in the world have a security camera. Even today, more and more people continue to adopt these into their homes and businesses to ensure security and safety for themselves, their items and the people around them. However, have you ever wondered or went into research about who came up with the great invention of the security camera?
It’s almost 9:30PM, and a policewoman sits in the CCTV control room at Mumbai Police Headquarters; monitors the cameras at a junction nearby. At that moment, a hit-and-run takes place. The police officer immediately rings officials and informs them about the accident. Within 5 minutes two constables are at the scene, and takes the person to the hospital. Luckily he was discharged within 2 hours of treatment and because this was all captured on camera, police were able to find the culprit.
She became a nurse and married her husband Albert Brown, who was an electronics technician. As a nurse, Brown worked long hours and would return home late at night. Her husband, too, had irregular hours so she was often alone at night.
Living in a high-crime neighbourhood and sometimes being left alone as a Black woman, Brown decided to figure out a way to see who was at her door if she heard knocking.
In 1966, as the popularity of her CCTV system started to spread. She applied for a patent. It took her 3 years before she was finally granted the patent for the security camera. This is the blueprint of Marie Brown and her husband Albert Brown's Patent (number 3,482,037) which was patented in 1966.
In 1964, Marie Brown, along with the assistance of her husband, created a closed-circuit security system. Currently known as CCTV. If you don't know what it is, it's basically using a camera that can save images or recordings to the system. The system included a motor on the cameras to help adjust it to see people of different heights. These cameras were connected to a TV screen. They even built a special mechanism for the door that allowed them to open it remotely.
After receiving the patent, Marie Van Brittan Brown was given the award by the National Science Committee (NSC). She was awarded this great honor for the creation of the home security system. Where she is from, she would have never dreamed of receiving an award with such high honor to her resume of achievements and accomplishments.
Through that invention we have been able to evolve home security cameras in various ways. Portable and small with the doorbell one, and a variety of different ones that are, and can be specific to rooms.
