Records of the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company, 1776-ca.1985 (inclusive), 1859-1968 (bulk)

The records of the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company document the daily operations of a manufacturing company from the late 1800s into the 1960s. Material includes financial records, advertising records and advertisements, research studies on the effectiveness of specific herbs and the Company's products in general, photographs, correspondence, legal records, pamphlets and a textbook published by the Company, actual products and their packaging, clippings and articles about Lydia Estes Pinkham and the Company, and a small amount of personal family papers. There are very few personal papers of Lydia Pinkham's; those that survive are quite fragile, and access copies are available on microfilm or photocopy. Early records of the Company include letters written from Dan Pinkham to his brother Will Pinkham while Dan was in Brooklyn selling the Compound (#3118). They include his daily budgets and observations about customers and druggists in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Complete records, including photographs, of the manufacturing process and formulae used in Pinkham products are in the collection, as well as labeling, packaging, and shipping records. There are records pertaining to the obscenity charges against Pinkham advertising (1900), investigations by the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, audiotapes of radio advertisements, posters, architects' drawings, and novelties. Many fans of Pinkham products wrote testimonial letters to Lydia Pinkham, which were subsequently used to advertise Pinkham products; most of these letters were destroyed by the company to protect the writers' privacy; a few are included.

When the collection was originally processed in June 1973, material was numbered and filed by both size and type of item. Loose paper records are housed in folders and numbered in a sequential order beginning at #1 and continuing through #3372. Material bound into a volume or kept in a binder of any sort are referred to as volumes, and are also numbered sequentially from Vol. 1 to Vol. 600. Any of these volumes too large to be housed in a standard archival file box or carton are referred to as "oversize volumes" and noted in the inventory by an "o" after their number. Some additional records were donated and described in 1974; this material is described in Series VI, and the numbering schema follows that of Series I to Series III. In all cases, if folders needed to be broken up for ease of use, or if material had to be inserted into the numbering schema, "a," "b," and so on were added to the numbers. The inventory lists only the numbers of the folders or volumes; the container list must be consulted in order to determine the box that folder or volume is stored within. In 2015, additional processing was done on Series IV to facilitate digitization; see that series description for a more complete explanation of the numbering schema followed. In 2017, a more complete inventory of the collection was conducted, and many oversize volumes were then housed within boxes for preservation purposes.

Series I, FINANCIAL RECORDS, 1859-1968 (Folders #1-635, Volumes 1o-327ao), includes journals, ledgers, cash books and payroll records, as well as tax statements, invoices, inventories, and freight bills, for the American, Mexican, and Canadian operations of the Company. The financial records date from 1859 (when the Pinkham Compound was sold only privately), but from the company's incorporation in 1873 on are much more complete. Employee records, and records of the Lougee and Galen Pharmacal Companies (both Pinkham subsidiaries), orders, price lists, and stock records are also included. This series documents in great detail the daily financial operations of a manufacturing company from the late 1800s through the early 1960s. The series is arranged by type of record.

Subseries A, Journals and ledgers, 1881-1968 (Volume 1o - Volume 67o), contains bound volumes holding Pinkham Company financial transactions. Journals are leather-bound volumes that record chronological financial transactions made by the Pinkham Company. They are stamped with "Journal" on the spine, and were generally used for one or two years. Ledgers are bound volumes that list transactions with accounts (sales, purchases, etc.) over time by account name; each volume contains an alphabetical index in the front.

Subseries B, Cash books, 1859-1966 (Volume 68o - Volume 135o), contains bound volumes that detail cash transactions of the Pinkham Company. Most twentieth century records are divided into "cash paid" and "cash received" volumes.

Subseries C, Payroll, 1877-1966 (Volume 136o - Volume 169o), contains bound volumes that document the weekly and sometimes yearly salaries paid to employees through most of the Lydia Pinkham Company's history. Volumes are listed chronologically.

Subseries D, Advertising registers, 1911-1933 (Volume 170o - Volume 186o), contains volumes that track how much money the Pinkham Company spent on advertising. Ten volumes (Volume 184o - Volume 184ho) track detailed advertising spending done in each state between 1928 and 1932 by local periodical title.

Subseries E, Receipts, 1875-1888, 1946-1965 (Folders #1-45, Volume 187o - Volume 196o), includes receipts, invoices, tax statements, and freight bills. A number of bound volumes list invoices recorded from 1946 through 1965. Loose receipts date only from 1875 to 1888, and document the daily operations of the business. Receipts are from local Massachusetts businesses (Lynn, Boston, Malden) as well as those in New York and Providence; they include packaging and ingredients, as well as rail shipping and advertising costs. Many of these receipts are written on the pictorial letterhead popular in the mid-nineteenth century; images of products, factories, storefronts, and patriotic symbols are throughout. Also included are some personal Pinkham family receipts, including for poll taxes, furniture, and clothing. Loose receipts are organized by year (and sometimes by month within a year). In some cases all yearly receipts from a particular business are grouped together. Freight bills are receipts from railway lines, steamship companies, American Express, and other shipping companies.

Subseries F, Inventories and appraisals, 1883-1965 (Folders #46-130, Volume 198 - Volume 243), include stock and furniture inventories. Yearly inventories were usually taken each quarter, possibly in part for tax purposes. Stock and furniture inventories also include other parts of the administration of the business (blank books, books in advertising room, etc.). In addition to the factory in Lynn, stock and furniture inventories accounted for material in Canada, Chicago, and other sites. Stock and furniture inventories seem to have been created in-house, while building and fixture inventories were created by the American Appraisal Company. Some inventories include depreciation assessment. Arranged chronologically.

Subseries G, Statements, 1883-1962 (Folders #131-222, Volume 244o - Volume 283o), contains records of the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company's cash on hand. Statements are bank statements, monthly and yearly balance sheets. Journals are bound volumes with monthly statements written inside. Many statements are in binders, typed on looseleaf paper.

Subseries H, Audits and other reports, 1902-1936 (Folder #223, Volume 284 - Volume 304), contains descriptions of accounting methods, annual statements of business, and reports on examinations.

Subseries I, Taxes, 1913-1963 (Folders #224-370), contains correspondence, tax returns, charts and other documentation relating to the Pinkham Company's United States taxes. Also included is material on the firm's Canadian taxes, as well as a few folders on taxes paid in Mexico and England.

Subseries J, Investments, 1896-1957 (Folders #371-415), contains bills, correspondence with investment brokers, and investment statements.

Subseries K, Mexican branch financial records, 1933-1964 (Folders #416-462b), contains accounting reports, contracts, sales reports, and correspondence related to the Pinkham Company's business dealings in Mexico. Of note are receipts and correspondence relating to business conducted with the pharmaceutical chain Sanborns Mexico (#41-424).

Subseries L, General and miscellaneous records, 1917-1967 (Folders #463-626, Volume 305 - Volume 320ao), includes inter-office memos, quarterly reports, tax information, and information related to payments, loans, benefits, and bonuses to employees.

Subseries M, Galen Pharmacal Company records, 1933-1936 (Folders #627-632, Volume 321 - Volume 327), contains correspondence and financial documents (receipts, tax records, bank statements, etc.) from the Pinkham Company's dealings with the Galen Pharmacal Company.

Subseries N, Lougee Medicine Company records, 1887-1888 (Folders #633-635) primarily consists of correspondence received by the Lougee Medicine Company.

Series II, ADVERTISING RECORDS, ca.1844-1968 (Folders #636-2538, Volume 328o - Volume 409o), includes articles about the Pinkham company, reports of ad sales, extensive documentation of the company's newspaper and magazine advertisements, correspondence about advertisements and their costs, and art work used in advertisements. See also Series IV for oversize art work and advertisements.

Subseries A, Advertising studies, reports, and sales records, 1920-1967 (Folders #636-750, Volume 328o - Volume 343), includes specific examples of advertising campaigns produced by the Pinkham Company, as well as advertising plans, market surveys, advertising schedules, sales reports, advertising and marketing recommendations for newspapers and radio stations (and later television stations) across the United States and Canada, and clippings about advertising trends, both in general and in the particular case of the Pinkham Company.

Subseries B, Correspondence, contracts, and statements, 1873-1949 (Folders #751-801, Volume 344) includes correspondence and contracts with newspapers for advertising arrangements for the Pinkham Company. Also included are billing statements for newspaper advertisements for Pinkham Company products. Folders are listed chronologically.

Subseries C, Advertising in newspapers, periodicals, and books, ca.1875-1957 (Folders #802-833, Volume 345o - Volume 369o), contains samples of print advertisements for a variety of publications. Volume 345 to Volume 369o are large scrapbooks created by the company, with advertisement copy pasted in chronologically.

Subseries D, Advertising copy: test copies, 1879-1953 (Folders #834-2396, Volume 370o - Volume 378), includes test copies from United States and foreign newspapers, magazines, trade journals, and other periodicals, 1935-1950. These were sent to the Pinkham Company by their advertising agency, and in general, each folder contains one or more preliminary copies of each advertisement run. At the top of each sheet is the name of the advertising company, the type of publication the ad would run in (e.g. "newspapers"), the type of product being advertised, the size (often in column inches) the ad would run, and the period of time the ad would run. Some folder titles include the title or first line on the advertisement, others include merely the type of periodical in which the ad would run. Many ads ran with the same or similar titles, but at different sizes. Folders found empty in 1973 when the collection was initially processed and numbered were retained. While most of the subseries is mid-twentieth century advertising, a few volumes pertain to the Pinkham Company's nineteenth century roots: advertisements for Pinkham products can be found in a volume of photographic views of Lynn, Massachusetts (Volume #370o).

Subseries E, Photographic work, art work, and layouts, ca.1844-1939 (Folders #2397-2412), contains one tintype of Lydia Estes Pinkham, portrait artwork in a variety of formats, and a few folders of artwork produced for product packaging and advertising. See also Series IV for two folders of miscellaneous Pinkham art work.

Subseries F, Pinkham pamphlets and Text-Book, 1893-1962 (Folders #2413-2504, Volumes 379o-408), contains a number of pamphlets and small books published by the Lydia Pinkham Company to promote and advertise its products. Most of the individually listed pamphlets are found in the bound volumes, but are also housed and listed individually, as some of them differ from the bound pamphlets in some respects, such as editions or editorial marks. Also included are some individual pamphlets which are not found in the bound set. Lydia E. Pinkham's Private Text-Book upon Ailments Peculiar To Women, a somewhat more substantial publication than the pamphlets, was meant to provide educational information about menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, and other reproductive matters to women, as well as to promote Pinkham products. Voice of Experience pamphlets (#2485-2488) were sponsored by Pinkham Company, written by radio host Marion Sayle Taylor (he billed himself as the "Voice of Experience"), and are mainly about child health and discipline.

Subseries G, Novelties and gifts, 1906-1968 (Folders #2505-2528, Volume 409o), contains samples of small gifts and novelties that were distributed with Pinkham products, or could be sent away for, often from an advertisement within a Pinkham pamphlet. Pamphlets that contained the advertisements for the specific novelties are noted when known. Folders #2506a-2508 include completed questionnaires sent in with an order for a knife or sewing kit; these include information about where customers bought Pinkham products, who recommended them, how long customers had been using them, and what they liked about them. Also included are small samples of Pinkham Company cosmetics and household supplies advertising Pinkham products.

Subseries H, Miscellaneous advertising, 1931-1950 (Folders #2529-2538), consists of glass negatives of advertisements, office documents and advertising records, a folder of litigation records, and lists of counter display and railway car advertising cards. See also Series IV for posters, car cards, phonograph records, and other miscellaneous material used in advertising.

Series III, GENERAL RECORDS, 1776-1967 (Folders #2539-3372, Volume 410o - Volume 600o), includes research studies on herbs and products; labeling, packaging, manufacturing, and shipping records; extensive documentation of the legal battle over control of the company between Aroline Pinkham Gove and the other Pinkham heirs; photographic documentation of the manufacturing process and other photographs; newsclippings, correspondence, miscellaneous business records, books and articles written about Lydia Pinkham, pamphlets and a textbook published by the Company, and family records. Also included in this series is correspondence regarding the obscenity charges against Pinkham advertising in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1900; the counterfeiting case of the same year; and government standards, inspection, and regulations regarding manufacture and advertising of patent medicine. The Text-Book on Ailments Peculiar to Women, in three languages, is also in this series.

Subseries A, Research studies, 1925-1960 (Folders #2539-2602, Volume 410o - Volume 417), includes data, correspondence, reports, and notes on the effects of herbs on various health conditions. Some of the studies were done by doctors and medical researchers before the Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company was established, but many were done by the company's own Research Department in the twentieth century. Some portions of these studies have been closed to researchers for varying periods of time because names of patients are given (see Series V for a specific listing).

Subseries B, Manufacturing records, 1873-1957 (Folders #2603-2654b, Volume 418 - Volume 460), includes formulas, data, correspondence, and manufacturing records for the Company in general and also for individual products. Material in this series provides detailed information about the ingredients and procedures used in the production of Pinkham Company products.

Subseries C, Labeling, packaging, and shipping records, 1880-1960 (Folders #2655-2697d, Volume 462o - Volume 522o), includes correspondence, scrapbooks, records, ledgers, and samples of Pinkham product packaging. Material in this subseries contains thorough descriptions and depictions of labeling, bottling, and packaging procedures from the inception of the Pinkham Company through its maturity. Shipping records are primarily receipts and ledgers documenting product shipping.

Subseries D, Trade mark registration, 1882-1956 (Folders #2698-2809), contains correspondence and legal documentation regarding the registering of the Pinkham Company trademark in a variety of countries.

Subseries E, National City Bank records, 1927-1941 (Folders #2810-2819, Volume 523 - Volume 525), contains account statements, stock exchange data, and address books related to the Pinkham Company's accounts with National City Bank.

Subseries F, Photographs (business), 1876-1952 (Folders #2820-2898), contains photographs of the facilities, equipment, and employees of the Pinkham Company. Many of these photographs have been digitized. Some oversize photographs are listed in Series IV. Photographs of the Pinkham family can be found in Subseries G, Family Records.

Subseries G, Family records, 1776-1957 (Folders #2899-2964, Volume 526 - Volume 531), includes photographs, legal documents, scrapbooks, genealogy documents, newspaper clippings, correspondence, and other family papers. Material is generally grouped by individual, and is related mainly to Lydia Pinkham's children and grandchildren. Much of the material relates to Lydia Pinkham's grandson Arthur Wellington Pinkham (1879-1960) and his children. In addition to working for the Pinkham Company, Arthur Pinkham was president of the National City Bank of Lynn, Massachusetts. His genealogical research, at least partly conducted due to an interest in joining the Sons of the American Revolution, is included. See also Subseries H for newsclippings of several family members and Subseries I for more family correspondence.

Subseries H, Newsclippings, pamphlets, books on Lydia Estes Pinkham, 1892-1968 (Folders #2965-3041, Volume 532 - Volume 533, Volume 599o - Volume 600o), includes biographical material on Lydia Estes Pinkham, as well as reviews of books about her, including biographies by Jean Burton and Robert Collier Washburn. Newspaper articles about Pinkham family members and Pinkham Company employees are also included. The series also includes a few photographs featuring Pinkham family members. Most photographs have been digitized.

Subseries I, Miscellaneous business records, 1877-1967 (Folders #3042-3201), contains sales reports, business correspondence, by-laws of the Pinkham Company and other subsidiaries, some Board of Director's records, and a few advertising records. Some notable early records of the Company are included: partnership agreements, certificates of organization, and by-laws. A few folders (#3117-3118) contain 1870s correspondence between Daniel and William Pinkham. Several folders of material (#3171-3175) relate to a 1900 legal case against a man found to be counterfeiting Lydia E. Pinkham Company labels.

Subseries J, Business with government agencies, 1927-1950 (Folders #3202-3222), contains correspondence, minutes, and reports. Most of the items in this subseries relate to the Pinkham Company's interactions with the Federal Trade Commission or the Food and Drug Administration.

Subseries K, General and litigation, 1883-1961 (Folders #3223-3364, Volume 534), includes legal records, as well as some financial and business records and newsclippings. The bulk of this subseries consists of litigation documentation from the case between Lydia Pinkham's descendents for control of the Company. In addition to general court documents, documents in this series record the struggles and positions of the Pinkham family members, who fought to keep their Gove relatives from controlling the Company.

Subseries L, Reference material and correspondence books, 1841-1950 (Folders #3365-3372, Volume 535 - Volume 600o), includes medicinal reference books and notes, bound volumes containing outgoing correspondence, other business correspondence, architectural sketches of a Pinkham Company facility, a guidebook on packaging, and some records from litigation. All the items in the collection that are written in Lydia Estes Pinkham's own hand can be found here; most of these are closed due to fragility but researchers can use microfilm. These include an autograph book, signed by Frederick Douglass; a journal with notes from the Lynn anti-Slavery Society; and a handwritten journal with recipes, including for Vegetable Compound.

Series IV, OVERSIZE AND SUPERSIZE ITEMS, 1896-1951, n.d. (#1+ - 93+, 3372a-3372c), contains Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company products and packaging, advertising posters, counter displays, railroad car advertisements, photographs, architectural drawings, audiotapes, and other oversize material. Counter displays (#51+ - 84f+) are colorful advertisements for Pinkham Company products meant to stand on a store counter or in a window, sometimes holding the actual product. These color lithographs are mounted on cardboard, and most have a pop-out cardboard piece on their backs that enables them to stand. Some are quite large, and a few of these are made with attached side panels that were meant to create a standing display. Railroad car cards (#86o - 86f+) are thin cardboard rectangular signs that were manufactured in the 1920s and 1930s to fit in the advertisement windows on railway and subway cars. A number of actual Pinkham Company products are included in this series, sometimes along with their original packaging (#29m - 50m). Some of the small novelties and gifts in this series were offered by the Pinkham Company as an enticement to answer a questionnaire on the back of the Pinkham pamphlets. Other small novelties can be found in Series II (#2505-2528).

When the collection was originally processed in June 1973, all loose material that was too large for a standard-size archival box was listed in this series. Items were numbered sequentially, starting at #1; some numbers refer to one item, some to a folder of material. Most were originally listed with a suffix of "o," a generic "oversize" designation. Over time, when some of these items were more fully described, or broken into multiple descriptive units, "a," "b," and so on were added after the number when multiple items needed to be described. "31ao" is an example of what resulted. In 2015, much of the material in this series was rehoused, and item and folder descriptions were enhanced. During this process, some items were moved to a more appropriate folder size, or were split into multiple folders. Items have now been identified with an alphabetic suffix that corresponds to the four sizes of oversize folders in use at the Schlesinger Library. For example, what had previously been identified as item "25o" became three folders: "25o," "25af+" and "25bf+." Actual products and product packaging, most of which are not actually oversize material, have been given a suffix designation of "m" to identify them as memorabilia. Thus "34o" is now "34m." See also Series VI for two oversize folders of material (#92o-92af+). The series is roughly arranged by type of item; many descriptions begin with a format designation.

Most of Series IV has been digitized and is available online.

Series V, CLOSED ITEMS, 1930-1958 (Folders #c1-c37b, #501a-501c, Volume 602), includes some research studies from Series III that reveal patient names and have thus been closed. These items are indicated as closed in the General Records and Research studies section of the regular inventory. These items are boxed separately at the end of the collection.

Series VI, ADDENDA, 1877-1960 (Folders #3373-3459, Volume 603, #92ao-92bf+), includes material donated to the Schlesinger Library in June 1974 after the original collection was organized. Addenda includes complete records of the Board of Directors (1883-1954), and additional stockholder and secretarial records; further documents concerning the Gove-Pinkham struggles for control of the Company; papers relating to formula changes, advertising, financial matters, and the Jean Burton biography of Lydia E. Pinkham. Volume 603 and folders #3373-3383 contain records of the Board of Directors (minutes, correspondence, and memoranda). Folders #3373-3375 were removed from two oversize volumes labeled "Board of Directors" and remaining folders were unbound. Folders #3384-3387 contain records of stockholders (minutes, correspondence, memoranda). This material has been arranged to follow the arrangement of Series I through IV.

Photographs have been digitized and are available online.