Image: Puck Lydia Blinkum (33628283250)

Description: Cartoon, "A 'Canteen' Compromise." Depicts Lydia Pinkham serving her patent medicine. Explanatory note provded by FDA: Lydia Pinkham was born in 1819 in Lynn, Massachusetts, into a prominent Quaker family. A downturn in the economy forced Lydia to be enterprising and she and her family made and marketed a "natural" tonic that appealed to those who sought an alternative to the "heroic" medicines of the era with their calomel (mercury based) medicines, and purging, blistering, and bleeding practices. Alcohol, with some herbs thrown in for good measure, was the principal ingredient of the Lydia Pinkham Vegetable Compound, which promised "a baby in a bottle." The advertising campaigns that one of Lydia's sons created for the tonic were so clever and effective that they not only led to booming sales, but remain a case study for many business schools. This ad proved particularly popular. The banner across the new Brooklyn Bridge of course, did not exist, but those who did not live in or travel to NY did not know that! Soon after the bridge was completed in 1883, the idea of illegally selling it became the ultimate example of superior -- if spurious -- salesmanship. As an advertising device, it was an emblem of modern science, progress, and cosmopolitanism.
Title: Puck Lydia Blinkum (33628283250)
Credit: Puck (magazine), Vol. 59, No. 1520. April 18, 1906. https://books.google.com/books?id=4etCAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PP250&pg=PP250#v=onepage "Puck Lydia Blinkum" U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Author: Samuel D. Ehrhart
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No