Lydia Estes Pinkham (1819-1883)
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| Title page from How to Be Happy. No. 153. Winter, 1930. Published by the Pinkham Medicine Company. |
In 1873, Lydia founded the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company in order to market a herbal medicine, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, that she had developed to treat the medical problems of her female friends and family members. Comprised of black cohosh, life root, unicorn root, pleurisy root, fenugreek seed and a substantial amount of alcohol, Lydia's Vegetable Compound claimed to bring relief to women during the menstrual cycle by alleviating menstrual cramps, and also during menopause by counteracting depression, hot flashes, and other symptoms. The timing of Lydia's business venture could not have been better, for in 1875 Isaac's real estate fortune plunged due to the onset of an economic depression in 1873.
The Lydia Pinkham Company was immensely successful. By the time of Lydia's death in 1883, her famous Vegetable Compound was grossing $300,000 annually, and in 1925 annual profits peaked at $3.8 million. The success of the Vegetable Compound was due to Lydia's wise decision to protect her herbal remedy by filing a patent with the U.S. Patent Office in 1876, which ensured Pinkham family control over the herbal remedy for the next fifty years.
Even more important to the company's success was Lydia's savvy marketing skills. In order to market her product directly to women, Lydia placed her own face on the label to persuade women consumers that she understood personally the maladies from which they suffered, and thus could help them with her Vegetable Compound. In addition, the company published letters from customers endorsing the medicine in the "Pinkham Pamphlets." The Pinkham Pamphlets published Lydia Pinkham's "answers" to women's medical queries, but which in reality were staff-written responses that continued for decades after Lydia's death. Nevertheless, the Pinkham Pamphlets were a means for distributing important medical advice about menstruation to women in an era when the standard treatment for vaginal cramps was the removal of the ovaries—a dangerous procedure in the nineteenth century with a mortality rate of 40 percent—as well as a reflection of 19th-century women's desires to take care of their own health, rather than leaving it in the hands of male medical practitioners.
Although her company had humble origins in her own kitchen, by the time the FDA restrained the company's activities in the early twentieth century (the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 forced the company to reveal that the compound contained up to 20% alcohol), the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company was a true multi-national corporation with production centers in Canada, Mexico, and the United States; "Lydia Pinkham Herbal Compound" is still available for sale in pill and liquid form. In the process, Lydia Pinkham changed the lives of thousands of American women by drawing attention to serious female medical issues that were being neglected by mainstream medicine.
OCP Resources
Finding AidLydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company: A Finding Aid. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. Manuscript Resources
Pinkham pamphlets, 1921-1934 (72 pamphlets). Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company. Records, 1776-1968 (inclusive), 1859-1968 (bulk).
Web Resources
Salem Women's Heritage Trail."Lydia Pinkham and Health Care for Women and Children."
Digital Tradition Mirror. The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham. Lyrics and music to the drinking song modeled on the gospel hymn, "I Will Sing of My Redeemer."