A Baby in Every Bottle: Lydia Pinkham, Purveyor of Patent Medicine and Sex Education

Lydia Estes Pinkham was a nineteenth century entrepreneur who sold patent medicine to women desperate for help with their medical and marital problems. Pinkham was hugely successful, not only because of the science behind her tonic but because her promotional materials gave frank and accurate advice to women seeking help with their bodies, their sex lives, and their husbands.

In 1875, Pinkham began selling a patent medicine she called Pinkham Vegetable Compound. It was just one product in a market of patent medicines that numbered in the hundreds of thousands of products, and yet her modestly-named elixir, promising (much less-modestly) a cure for every female illness, quickly became a top-selling tonic. Pinkham’s claims that her compound could bring about better health, a more vibrant sexuality, and greater fertility (some ads for the product promised “a baby in every bottle”), were quickly substantiated by the thousands of letters that poured in from grateful customers. Capitalizing on the correspondence and recognizing women’s unmet need for useful advice on their health and sexuality, Lydia began writing dense pamphlets that were one-part advertisement for her product and two-parts sex education.