Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article
October 23, 1988
By Susan J. Dehler
Vigo County Historical Society
Lydia’s cure-all popular Rx
The public’s faith in orthodox medicine was justifiably skittish in the 19th century. Medical therapy and surgery often were dangerous. By mid-century, many patients abandoned the offerings of the medical profession for the quick or easy remedies of lay practitioners and patent-medicine companies.
Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was one such alternative. It offered “a Positive Cure for all those Painful Complaints and Weaknesses so common to our best female population.” The tonic was so successful that it was sold for more than 100 years. Although its originator died in 1883 (only seven years after it was available nationally), much of the compound’s popularity was due to the personalized and concerned approach of Lydia Pinkham herself.
Lydia Estes was born in 1819 in Lynn, Mass., to Quaker parents. Her upbringing allowed free expression of thought and she became an early advocate for women’s rights and for the abolition of slavery. Lydia taught school for many years until her marriage to Isaac Pinkham in 1843.
Although her husband tried several business ventures, he never succeeded financially. The economic panic of 1873 ruined him, but perhaps provided the impetus to manufacture the Vegetable Compound.
According to historian Donald Dale Jackson, Lydia had been brewing the compound on her stove and giving it away to neighbors and friends for quite some time. The story has it that “one day in 1875 the family gathered in the kitchen when several women from nearby Salem appeared at the door. They had heard about Mrs. Pinkham’s medicine, they said, and they wished to buy some. Lydia sold them six bottles for $5. Dan, the most imaginative and aggressive of her sons, was the one who made the suggestion: “Why not go into the business of selling the brew?”
From the beginning it was a family business with Lydia’s sons (Dan, Charles and Will) handling the operation from manufacturing to advertising. The ads claimed that male physicians often were unsympathetic to women’s medical problems or not properly prepared to treat them. Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was “A medicine for woman. Invented by a woman. Prepared by a woman.”
Lydia’s picture on the box and her concerned advice became symbols to customers of what the tonic offered. A pamphlet on the compound’s use accompanied each bottle and Lydia personalized her treatment by offering homey opinions and suggestions to customers who wrote to her. (Even after Lydia’s death, the company continued to answer correspondence assuring female customers that “Men Never See Your Letters.”)
Perhaps Lydia’s sympathetic approach won her a loyal clientele among female patients. Or could it have been the ingredients: unicorn root, life root, black cohosh, pleurisy root, fenugreek seed--and 18 percent alcohol.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.