Lydia Pinkham

For more information on Lydia Estes Pinkham, visit Britannica.com.

As her family was struggling to make ends meet, afew women stopped by the kitchen of Lydia Pinkham (1819-1883) and offered to pay cash for some of her homemade herbal medicine. That visit steered the family into a venture that would make them rich and would make Pinkham an advertising pioneer and an American cultural icon.

Lydia Estes Pinkham, born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on February 9, 1819, was the tenth of twelve children of William and Rebecca Estes, radical Quakers. The Esteses encouraged all their children to be freethinkers. Mr. Estes, originally among the many shoemakers of Lynn, realized enough profit from a saltworks during the War of 1812 that he was later able to make a fortune in real estate. Mrs. Estes introduced the family to the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and theologian who claimed to have had contact with the spiritual world. Lydia would attempt to communicate with departed loved ones during her lifetime. Followers of Swedenborg were abolitionists (opposed to slavery), vegetarians, and nondrinkers (they abstained from drinking alcoholic beverages). Swedenborgian teachings and the Esteses' opening of their home to reformers (including escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass) no doubt influenced young Lydia to join social movements and be a reformer and feminist. At 16 she joined the Lynn Female Anti-Slavery Society and was an advocate of women's rights.

After graduating from Lynn Academy, Lydia taught school until she met and married Isaac Pinkham, a widower with a young daughter, in 1843. A shoe manufacturer, Isaac soon was pursuing one speculative venture after another in hopes of attaining his father-in-law's success. Consequently, his fortunes rose and fell as he tried various occupations and moved his growing family about. It was during one of his financially better times that he paid the 25 dollar debt of a Lynn machinist named George Clarkson Todd. Todd gave Isaac the formula for a nostrum (a cure-all) in exchange for the payment. According to legend, the formula was for the vegetable compound Pinkham would later manufacture for sale. At the time, however, many homemakers brewed home medicines. Pinkham herself kept a notebook with directions for various folk remedies, so the legend may not be entirely accurate.

"Saviour of Her Sex"

The family attained some security during the Civil War, but a financial panic in 1873 resulted in banks in Lynn beginning foreclosure on mortgages. Isaac was sued and threatened with arrest for not paying his debts. Though the suit was eventually dropped, he was left a broken man no longer able to work. All the Pinkham children secured jobs to sustain the household. Two years later the family was nearly destitute when some ladies visited the house and offered to buy a half-dozen bottles of the medicine Pinkham brewed as a cure for "women's weakness"; she usually gave it away. Pinkham's son Daniel immediately saw a business opportunity for the family. Soon Pinkham, with son William's help, was brewing Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound in the cellar and writing advertising copy, and Daniel was peddling it. Children Charles and Aroline helped buy herbs and alcohol with their wages. And Isaac sat in his rocker and folded the four-page "Guide for Women" pamphlet that was distributed with each bottle of the nostrum. William was named proprietor (because he had no outstanding debts) when the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company officially organized in 1876.

The Pinkhams launched their business at a fortuitous time. "Lydia Pinkham began selling her Vegetable Compound in an era marked by medical controversy, public dissatisfaction with doctors, an obsessive concern with women's weaknesses - a climate ideally suited to promote the success of the Pinkham venture," remarked Sarah Stage in Female Complaints. Despite medical advances, many doctors employed unsafe therapies and actually increased mortality rates by spreading bacteria. Though a simple mixture of herbs and 18 percent alcohol, the Vegetable Compound was touted as a cure for female complaints from menstrual problems to reproductive disorders and was viewed as a safe alternative to a doctor's medicine. Of the 36 proof alcohol content, Pinkham - herself and her children members of the temperance society (meaning they advocated abstinence from intoxicating drink) - said it was necessary for the therapeutic effect and as a preservative. (Indeed, decades later when the government forced the company to reformulate the compound, it didn't keep as well with less alcohol.) Pinkham claimed that consumption of the cure-all as directed would not conflict with temperance. However, because it was thought alcohol might aggravate menstrual disorders, by 1881 the company was also manufacturing the compound in pill and lozenge form.

Pinkham, still a reformer, helped dispel the nineteenth-century view of women as being weak. She dispensed commonsense advice on diet, health, and exercise when she answered letters and wrote pamphlets on a range of household topics. Testimonials eventually poured in from women who had heeded Pinkham's advice and "let doctors alone," finding relief instead in the compound. There probably was some truth in the reports. According to Dan Russell in "Drug War: Inquisition," "All [the ingredients of the compound] had been official or semi-official in the U.S. Pharmacopeia or the U.S. Dispensatory for various female ills." Scientists analyzing the compound in the 1940s and 1950s found estrogens in the ingredients, which could have therapeutic value to women. (One ingredient, black cohosh, is currently recommended by herbalists to relieve the symptoms of menopause.) "So far from being bunkum, Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound was probably the best female tonic on the market, although Lydia did go a bit overboard in claiming to cure all female ills, and in advising customers to 'write Mrs. Pinkham,' avoid doctors altogether and just guzzle Compound," concluded Russell. Pinkham likely was echoing her grateful customers when she declared herself the "Saviour of Her Sex" in advertising.

Grandmother of Modern Advertising

The Vegetable Compound may have been a safe alternative to dangerous gynecology, but at first it was just one more nostrum in a sea of proprietary medicines. Daniel did his best to sell Pinkham's mixture by circulating pamphlets and contacting druggists, yet sales were low. It was an impulsive action by William that catapulted Pinkham's compound ahead of all the other patent medicines. He stopped into the Boston Herald and asked how much it would cost to print the four-page Pinkham pamphlet on the front page. William spent 60 of the 84 dollars he had just collected from a drug wholesaler for the space. The family could be upset with him only a short time. "Within two days new orders came in from three other wholesalers, and the Pinkhams had the first glimpse of their eventual boulevard to fame and fortune," wrote Donald Dale Jackson in Smithsonian.

The Pinkhams had hit upon the perfect way to market their product. Pinkham was one of the first women to write the advertising copy for a product. The compound, she stated flatly, was: "A medicine for women. Invented by a woman. Prepared by a woman." Most of the early newspaper ads for Pinkham's had sensational headlines that appeared to be lead-ins for news stories. One ad talked of a clergyman killed by his wife suffering from female complaints. Of course, regardless of the tragedy revealed in ad text, it always could have been prevented if the woman had taken Vegetable Compound. Pain and suffering ads were the most effective; the company's less sensational ads just didn't produce sales. Customers preferred to know that it was "the surest remedy for the painful ills and disorders suffered by women everywhere" rather than how it "plants on the pale cheek of woman the fresh roses of life's spring and early summer time."

For decades the company would spend a large percentage of its annual sales on advertising, but it paid off handsomely. The brewing operation moved out of the cellar into a building next door in 1878; the building then had to be enlarged. Unsolicited testimonials poured in that were sometimes incorporated into advertising, and upwards of 150 letters a day came in asking Pinkham's advice; these she answered personally in strict confidence. Her daughter-in-law oversaw answering correspondence after her death.

Cultural Icon

In 1879 Daniel Pinkham had a brainstorm that would make his mother a cultural icon. Trying to figure out a way to capitalize on the popularity of products made in New England, he hit upon the idea of using his sixty-year-old mother's picture as the company symbol. Pinkham posed for her portrait dressed in her best black silk dress with a bit of ruching (trim) at the neck and her hair swept up in a bun. Her grave, composed countenance exuded caring and competence, a grandmotherly feel. "Lydia's 'cast-iron smile' began appearing in the press at a time when female faces were still rare enough in American dailies to seize a reader's attention. For years hers was one of the few on display; editors lacking a picture of Queen Victoria or other noted women would sometimes use Lydia's portrait as a substitute," noted Jackson. Pinkham's likeness was put on product labels, newspaper advertising, lithographs, trade cards, souvenir plates, and gift items - all of which today are sought-after medical collectibles. Business doubled as a result. It was estimated in the 1940s that some $40 million had been spent publishing Pinkham's picture.

As with well-known figures today, Pinkham drew ribbing from humorists, especially since her expertise was in female complaints. College boys parodied Pinkham and her advertising copy in songs. The refrain of one song went: "OH-H-H, we'll sing of Lydia Pinkham, / And her love for the human race. / How she sells her vegetable compound,/ And the papers, the papers they publish, they publish her FACE!" The verses of another song referred to a product claim: "'There's a baby in each bottle.' / Thus the old quotation ran. / But you read in every textbook / That you still will need a man." All this attention, of course, made the Vegetable Compound even more popular.

Name Lived On

Distraught over the deaths of sons Daniel and William in 1881 due to tuberculosis, Pinkham held frequent seances hoping to communicate with them. Late in 1882, she suffered a paralyzing stroke; in May 1883 she died and was buried next to her sons. Under the helm of son Charles, and with an enormous advertising budget, the business thrived and expanded into foreign markets. "In 1898 the compound was the most heavily advertised product in the United States, its name as familiar as Coca-Cola and McDonald's are today," reported Jackson. After Charles died, a divisive company power struggle ensued for years among family members. Yet the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company managed to survive the infighting and the passage of the Food and Drug Act, with its attendant regulations. Sales gradually declined after peaking at $3 million in 1925. In 1968 the heirs sold the company to a large pharmaceutical company, which moved bottling operations to Puerto Rico.

"Biographers, the lusty songs, the national sense of humor, the company's ads, which kept Lydia's spirit marching on, have all combined to perpetuate the name of a shrewd and plucky New England woman who was engaged in the manufacture of patent medicine for only the last eight years of her life," observed Gerald Carson in One for a Man, Two for a Horse.

Books

Applegate, Edd, Personalities and Products: A Historical Perspective on Advertising in America, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Carson, Gerald, One for a Man, Two for a Horse: A Pictorial History, Grave and Comic, of Patent Medicines, Doubleday, 1961.

Stage, Sarah, Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine, Norton, 1979.

Periodicals

Smithsonian, July 1984.

Online

"Drug War: Inquisition," http://www.drugwar.com/inquisition.htm (January 12, 2001).

"Lydia Estes Pinkham," Women in American History by Encyclopedia Britannica,http://women.eb.com/women/articles/Pinkham-Lydia-Estes.html (January 12, 2001).

"Lydia Estes Pinkham: Herstory and Genealogy," http://www.kithandkin.net/pinkham.html (January 12, 2001).

"Lily the Pink" redirects here. For the popular song by The Scaffold, see Lily the Pink (song).

"Medicinal compound" redirects here. For the general term, see Pharmaceutical drug.

Lydia E. Pinkham (from a 1904 pamphlet)

Lydia Estes Pinkham (February 9, 1819 – May 17, 1883) was an iconic concocter and shrewd marketer of a commercially successful herbal-alcoholic "women's tonic" meant to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound 3 The original product and its modern descendants 4 Drinking songs 4.1 The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham 4.2 Lily the Pink 5 References 6 Notes 7 External links

Biography

Lydia Pinkham was born in the manufacturing city of Lynn, Massachusetts, the tenth of the twelve children of William and Rebecca Estes. The Estes were an old Quaker family tracing their ancestry to one William Estes, a Quaker who migrated to America in 1676, and through him to the thirteenth century Italian house of Este. William Estes was originally a shoemaker, but by the time Lydia was born in 1819 he had become wealthy through dealing in real estate and had risen to the status of "gentleman farmer"^[1] Lydia was educated at Lynn Academy and worked as a schoolteacher before her marriage in September 1843.^[2]

The Estes were a strongly abolitionist and anti-segregation family. The fugitive slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was a neighbour and a family friend. The Estes household was a gathering place for local and visiting abolitionist leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison. The Estes broke from the Quakers over the slavery issue in the 1830s. Lydia joined the Lynn Female Anti-slavery Society when she was sixteen; in the controversies which divided the abolitionist movement during the 1840s Lydia would support the feminist and moral suasion positions of Nathaniel P. Rogers.^[3] Her children would continue in the anti-slavery tradition.^[4]

Isaac Pinkham was a 29-year-old shoe manufacturer when he married Lydia in 1843, he would try various business without much success. Lydia gave birth to her first child Charles Hacker Pinkham in 1844, lost her second child to gastroenteritis, and gave birth to her second surviving child Daniel Rogers Pinkham in 1848. A third son, William Pinkham, was born in 1852 and a daughter Aroline Chase Pinkham in 1857.^[5] (All the Pinkham children would eventually be involved in the Pinkham medicine business.)

Like many women of her time Lydia Pinkham brewed home remedies, which she continually collected. Her remedy for "female complaints" became very popular among her neighbours to whom she gave it away. One story is that her husband was given the recipe as part payment for a debt,^[6] whatever truth may be in this the ingredients of her remedy were generally consistent with the herbal knowledge available to her through such sources as John King's American Dispensary which she is known to have owned and used.^[4] In Lydia Pinkham's time and place the reputation of the medical profession was low. Medical fees were too expensive for most Americans to afford except in emergencies, in which case the remedies were more likely to kill than cure. For example a common "medicine" was calomel, in fact not a medicine but a deadly mercurial toxin, and this fact was even at the time sufficiently well known among the sceptical to be the subject of a popular comic song.^[7] In these circumstances there is no mystery why many preferred to trust unlicensed "root and herb" practitioners, and to trust women prepared to share their domestic remedies such as Lydia Pinkham.^[8]

Isaac Pinkham was financially ruined in the Panic of 1873, he narrowly escaped arrest for debt and his health was permanently broken by the associated stress.^[9] The fortunes of the Pinkham family had long been patchy but they now entered on hard times. Lydia sometimes accepted payment for her popular remedy for female complaints. It is reputed to have been her son Daniel who came up with the idea, in 1875 of making a family business of the remedy. Lydia initially made the remedy on her stove before its success enabled production to be transferred to a factory, she answered letters from customers and probably wrote most of the advertising copy.^[10] Mass marketed from 1876 on, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines of the 19th century. Descendants of this product are still available today. Lydia's skill was in marketing her product directly to women and her company continued her shrewd marketing tactics after her death. Her own face was on the label and her company was particularly keen on the use of testimonials from grateful women.

Advertising copy urged women to write to Mrs. Pinkham. They did, and they received answers. They continued to write and receive answers for decades after Lydia Pinkham's death. These staff-written answers combined forthright talk about women's medical issues, advice, and, of course, recommendations for her product. In 1905 the Ladies' Home Journal published a photograph of Lydia Pinkham's tombstone and exposed the ruse. The Pinkham company insisted that it had never meant to imply that the letters were being answered by Lydia Pinkham, but by her daughter-in-law, Jennie Pinkham.

Although Pinkham's motives were partly self-serving, many modern-day feminists admire her for distributing information on menstruation and the "facts of life" and consider her to be a crusader for women's health issues in a day when women were poorly served by the medical establishment.

In 1922, Lydia's daughter Aroline Chase Pinkham Gove founded the Lydia E. Pinkham Memorial Clinic in Salem, Massachusetts. The clinic, still in operation as of 2004^[update], provides health services to young mothers and their children. It is designated Site 9 of the Salem Women's Heritage Trail.

Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

Of the five herbs in Lydia Pinkham's original formula:

• Pleurisy root is diaphoretic, anti-spasmodic, carminative, and anti-inflammatory.
• Life root is a traditional uterine tonic, diuretic, anti-inflammatory, and emmenagogue used for amenorrhea or dysmenorrhea.
• Fenugreek is vulnerary, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, tonic, emmenagogue, galactogogue, and hypotensive.^[11]
• Unicorn Root was used by several Native American tribes for dysmenorrhea, uterine prolapse, pelvic congestion and to improve ovarian function.^[12]
• Black cohosh is an emmenagogue, anti-spasmodic, alterative, nervine, and hypotensive and is used traditionally for menopausal symptoms.^[11]

Of the newer additions, motherwort is a nervine, emmenagogue, anti-spasmodic, hepatic, cardiac tonic, and hypotensive. Piscidia erythrina (Jamaican dogwood) is an eclectic remedy that has been found effective for painful spasms, pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea and ovarian pain.^[12] Licorice is anti-inflammatory, anti-hepatotoxic, anti-spasmodic and a mild laxative. Gentian is a bitter, sialagogue, hepatic, cholagogue, anthelmintic, and emmenagogue. Dandelion is a potassium-sparing diuretic, hepatic, cholagogue, anti-rheumatic, laxative, tonic, and a bitter.^[11]

From a box of her medicine

Lydia Pinkham Memorial Clinic in Salem, MA

(It is often suggested by the alternative medicine community that black cohosh (and a purified version, Remifemin) really do provide relief from symptoms of menopause. A report by the Natural Standard, which performs evidence-based reviews of alternative therapeutics, says:

Black cohosh is a popular alternative to prescription hormonal therapy for treatment of menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, mood problems, perspiration, heart palpitations, and vaginal dryness. Initial human research suggests that black cohosh may improve some of these symptoms for up to six months. However, most studies are not well designed and results are not conclusive.

The report gives the evidence a "B" rating, "good scientific evidence for this use."

In a day when the mainstream treatment of these conditions was sometimes surgical removal of ovaries—with a mortality rate of 40%—it can be argued that at the very least Pinkham's remedy followed the sound medical principle of "first, do no harm."

However many of the ingredients have been traditionally used by a number of unrelated Indian tribes, in Chinese medicine and in western medicine, which gives credence to at least some relief being actively given even if double blind tests have not been done to confirm their usefulness. The persistence of Mrs. Pinkham's compound long after her death is testament to its acceptance by women who sought relief from menstrual and menopausal symptoms. The company continued under family control until the 1930s.^[13] Although Lydia Pinkham's company continued increasing profit margins fifty years after her death, eventually the advent of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) caused changes in the formula. The compound is now produced by a pharmaceutical company.

The original product and its modern descendants

Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound

The original formula for Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound was:

• Unicorn root (Aletris farinosa L.) 8 oz.
• Life root (Senecio aureus L.) 6 oz.
• Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa (L.) Nutt.) 6 oz.
• Pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa L.) 6 oz.
• Fenugreek seed (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) 12 oz.
• Alcohol (18%) to make 100 U.S. pints

As of 2004^[update], Numark Laboratories of Edison, New Jersey markets a similar product named "Lydia Pinkham Herbal Compound". The product is carried by the Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid. drugstore chains. Ingredients listed in this product are:

• Motherwort (Leonorus cardiaca)
• Gentian (Gentiana lutea)
• Jamaican dogwood (Piscidia erthrina)
• Pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa)
• Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra)
• Black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa)
• Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).

Time of Your Life Nutraceuticals of St. Petersburg, Florida produces a product named Lydia's Secret for Lydiapinkham.org. Said to be "based on" the original formula, it has these listed ingredients

• Black cohosh root (Cimicifuga racemosa)
• Dandelion root (Taraxacum officinale)
• Pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa)
• Chastetree berry (Vitex agnus-castus)
• False unicorn root (Chamaelirium luteum)
• Jamaica dogwood bark (Piscidia erthrina)
• Gentian root (Gentiana lutea)
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin B6
• Magnesium
• Zinc.

Drinking songs

Drinking songs that consist of numerous verses describing the humorous and ribald invigorating effects of some food or medicine form almost a small genre in themselves. Lydia and her "medicinal compound" are memorialized in the folk songs "The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham," and "Lily the Pink". A sanitized version of Lily the Pink was a number one hit for The Scaffold in the United Kingdom in 1968/69. This song was successfully adapted in French in 1969 by Richard Anthony, describing humorously the devastating effects of a so-called "panacée" (universal medicine). It should not pass without mention that the reason a humble women's tonic was the subject of such and sundry ribald drinking ballads and an increasing success in the twenties and early thirties was its availability, as a 40-proof patent eye-opener, during Prohibition. As folk songs, they have no definitive versions. Some representative samples will convey their flavor:

The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham

Let us sing of Lydia Pinkham

The benefactress of the human race.

She invented a vegetable compound,

And now all papers print her face.

Mrs. Jones she had no children,

And she loved them very dear.

So she took three bottles of Pinkham's

Now she has twins every year.

Peter Whelan, he was sad

Because he only had one nut

Till he took some of Lydia's compound

Now they grow in clusters 'round his butt.

Mrs. Smith had nursing problems

Had nursing problems, she didn't know how.

But after drinking a bottle of compound

They had to milk her like a cow.

Mrs. Johnson has kidney trouble

Had kidney trouble, she could not pee.

But after drinking a bottle of compound

They had to pipe her to the sea.

Lily the Pink

Chorus:
So we'll drink a drink a drink
To Lily the pink the pink the pink
The savior of the human race.
She invented medicinal compound
Most efficacious in every case.

Here's the story - a little bit gory, A little bit happy, a little bit sad - Of Lily the Pink and her medicinal compound And how it drove her to the bad. Johnny Hammer had a t-t-terrible s-s-stammer. He could hardly s-s-say a word. So they gave him medicinal compound, And now he's seen, but never heard. And Uncle Paul, he was terribly small. He Was the shortest man in town. So on his body he rubbed medicinal compound, And now he's six foot, underground. Ebenezer thought he was Julius Caesar So they put him in a home Where they gave him medicinal compound Now he's Emperor of Rome. And Freddie Clinger, the opera singer, Who could break glasses with his voice they said. He rubbed his tonsils with medicinal compound, And now they break glasses over his head.

And Mr. Frears, who had sticky out ears. And it made him awful shy. So they gave him medicinal compound, And now he's learning how to fly. Brother Tony was notably bony He would never eat his meals And so they give him medicinal compound Now they move him round on wheels Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles All the boys would call her names But she changed with medicinal compound And now he joins in all their games Lily the Pink, she - turned to drink, she - Filled up with paraffin inside. And in spite of medicinal compound. Poor old pick-a-Lily died! Up to heaven her soul ascended. Oh, the church bells they did ring. She took with her medicinal compound. Hark the herald angels sing!

References

1. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 18
2. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 24-25
3. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 20-24
4. ^ ^{a b} Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 28
5. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 25-26
6. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 27-28
7. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 49-50 "The man in death begins to groan/The fatal job for him is done;/ He dies, alas!, but sure to tell,/ A sacrifice to Calomel" a verse from the song by Lydia's neighbours the Singing Hutchinsons
8. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 53
9. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 page 31-32
10. ^ Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8 Chapter 1
11. ^ ^{a b c} http://www.healthy.net/scr/MMList.asp?MTId=1 David Hoffman Herbal Medicine Materia Medica
12. ^ ^{a b} Brinker, F. A comparative review of eclectic female regulators. Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, Winter, 1997, Vol. 7, (1), pp. 11-26.
13. ^ Family Trouble - TIME

Notes

The L.E.Pinkham Medicine Company had its factory and offices on the corner of 267-271 Western Avenue and Cleveland St. See the 1897 Atlas of Lynn, Massachusetts, plate 6. Lower Right side. Click on map for a very large and clear image.

Also see:Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkahm and the Business of Women's Medicine by Sarah Stage. 1979 W. W. Norton and Co, ISBN 0-393-00033-8

External links

• Lydia Pinkham at Encyclopædia Britannica
• Herbs Used by 19th Century Eclectic Physicians to treat Female Genito-Urinary Conditions Brinker, Francis. A comparative review of eclectic female regulators. Journal of Naturopathic Medicine, Winter, 1997, Vol. 7, (1), pp. 11-26.
• LydiaPinkham.org
• Lydia Pinkham Herbal Compound by Numark Labs
• Advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, from an early-1900s cookbook entitled Fruits and Candies
• Letter signed "Mrs Pinkham", received by a woman who wrote to her in 1910.
• [1] Salem Women's Heritage Trail
• Natural Standard Patient Monograph on black cohosh
• WWII B-17 Shot Down 19 December 1943 - Robert D. Peterson Pilot, warplane named "Lydia Pinkham"
• Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company. Records, 1776-1968.Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
• Newspaper advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, from The Daily Evening News, Saint John, N.B., April 17, 1883

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)