This is a very silly tangent, but it's actually remarkable how early cameras became an economical (albeit slightly luxurious) way to preserve personal histories: I have pictures of ancestors from the 1870s and 1880s, despite living in a one horse shtetl in the middle of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Kodak Brownie[1] was arguably the first "mass market" camera, and it's 122 years old this year.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie

Rich people got them in the 1890s. $10 a "roll" back then; ~$300 today. You had to mail the camera back to Kodak to get the film developed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20090306221410/http://www.kodak....

The Eastman Museum in Rochester is worth a visit if you're in the area.

https://www.eastman.org/about