Lydia E. Pinkham - Vegetable Compound

Lydia E. Pinkham converted her home medicine remedy to a major business, and pioneered advertising to women. That her patent medicine had a high percentage alcohol content didn't hurt its attraction -- and some temperance leaders unwittingly lent their names to her advertising campaigns.

Find A Grave: Lydia Pinkham
Images of Lydia Pinkham's burial site, Massachusetts.

Lydia E. Pinkham's Medicine Business
A brief history of Pinkham's product, including images of advertisements, bottles, some pages from "Lydia Pinkham's Private Text-Book Upon Ailments Peculiar to Women," and many more objects. Article at the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health.

The Name that Launched a Million Bottles
A story of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, from the Vanderbilt Medical Center's Patent Medicine Collection.

Varieties of Medical Ephemera: Women
Includes an image of Lydia Pinkham from a pamphlet, 1908.

Women, Money, and Power: Lydia Pinkham
Video presentation about Lydia Pinkham, emphasizing how Pinkham answered real needs of women for medical advice, and was thus "thrust" into entrepreneurship.

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