Doorways to Time Travel

I should be packing for my trip right now. My daughter, Gwen, and I will soon be departing for the ultimate daddy-daughter date to the other side of the world: South Korea. We will leave through the doorway of our house, go through doorways to the flight terminal, the intrusive security portal, and into the jet, then over seventeen hours later, we'll begin to explore through unfamiliar doorways in an exotic land 7,000 miles away - what an incredible journey.

But what would it be like if, instead of just going through different doorways of space, we could pass through different doorways of time? Jules Verne helped us do it with his wonderful book, The Time Machine, but we have also done it many times when going through doorways at places like Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Massachusetts and restored historical buildings all over the continent. There is something about ancient doorways that call to me, urging me to go through, and for a few moments at least, to try imagining what it was like to be there centuries ago.

That's what I offer you today: some very special doors to the past. This photograph contains doorways to the house and the early laboratory of the Pinkham family of Lynn, Massachusetts, probably in about the year 1880.

The original, sepia-toned photograph is from a stereopticon view: two identical images pasted next to each other on the same piece of cardstock; when viewed through a pair of lenses called a stereopticon viewer. An optical illusion is created whereby the two copies of the same photograph visually merge, making the subjects they contain appear three-dimensional. I submit to you, though, that a stereopticon viewer is not essential to enjoy a multi-dimensional perspective on the subject. While our eyes can perceive three dimensions, our imaginations can enjoy many more, if we let them. Let's work wiith this old sepia-tone photo and see what we have missed at first glance — with or without the stereopticon viewer.

My son, Nick, has done another great job using computer graphics to bring the sepia image into our world by adding color (see my 25 November 2023 blog post, "Their World Wasn't Sepia") and in doing so, some parts of the picture come to life in a way that my eye just missed before. Maybe the biggest surprise was to see a dog lying across the tops of two barrels on the left side of the photograph! So we have not only the Pinkham family and the Pinkham company workers, but the Pinkham pooch!

Something else that also stands out much better after the colorization are the stacks of Pinkham packing crates, either ready for packing or already packed and ready for shipping. The stack on the far left may be showing the ends of the crates (stacked by the narrow side so as not to block the door to the right), while the stacks to the left of the big entrance to the laboratory building are visible from the long side of the crates. I have also added a photograph here of two Pinkham shipping cases in my collection, showing them from the long and short sides; if you look closely enough at the photo, you can see the arch of type on some of the boxes and sometimes even a blob of black under the arch that was actually Lydia Pinkham's face, just like on my examples here.

Who the people are, specifically, is harder to determine. From the existing photos of Lydia's husband, Isaac, and their three sons: Charles, Dan, and Will, it is very difficult to determine who's who; relying exlusively on facial hair, it is possible that the man behind the dog was Charles, their oldest son, who later in life sported a bushy walrus moustache. If the photo was taken in 1880 as I believe, then sons Dan and Will were still living, although Dan may have already been showing signs of his terminal affliction with tuberculosis, then known as consumption for its propensity to make advanced victims look emaciated; perhaps the gaunt-looking fellow to the left of the dog is Dan, based on what look like hollow cheeks.

The Pinkhams had only one daughter, Aroline. I suspect she is in the photo, too, because this type of late-19th century photography is typical of a proprietor's photo, intentionally taken to include all the owners, family, and workers, set in front of the business to show it off and use it as a promotional piece. Given this purpose, I'm sure Aroline is one of the three young women (I'll take a wild stab and say the one at the base of the stairs, depicted in light blue, in front of her mother) and the other two were employees who helped Lydia in responding to her correspondence. The only person I am certain of in the entire picture is the matronly image of Lydia E. Pinkham herself, standing all in black in her doorway. Blown up and slightly colorized, she looks almost spectral — appropriately so for a woman who died over 140 years ago.

I invite you to walk up to these Pinkham doorways — maybe even go through them, if your imagination will take you there. Can you hear the inside of the laboratory building echo with the sound of men's and boy's voices, talking and sometimes punctuating with laughter, and hard-soled shoes scuffing along the floorboards? Does the sound of glass bottles clinking together in wooden crates echo their music as hay is stuffed around each one to quietly protect them? Do the pungent odors from the barrels of herbs waft through the air under your nose, constantly reminding the senses that this is not just another storehouse or barn?

And when you are invited through the front door of the Pinkham home, is it a quiet domestic sanctuary? Listen carefully, though, and you can hear the voices of a few young women respectfully seeking guidance from Lydia herself about how to answer the next letter sent by a desperate woman from some distant place who is hoping for a solution to her private discomforts from the lady renowned for her knowledge and wisdom.

     It should also be pointed out that that narrow, gravelly dirt cartway in front of all of them is what became the very wide, busy, fast-paced thoroughfare called Western Avenue and Route 107.

Hopefully this picture will transport you, even for just a few minutes, to a different place and time, bringing you great enjoyment at the very nominal expense of a little imagination, while Gwen and I travel through other doors in an exotic land far away, seeking memorable adventures, just like you. Bon voyage!

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine

Soule's Eradicator: the Flower or the Worm?

It's so easy for me to imagine the scene in 1885: a young woman of Lynn, Massachusetts, has put in another long, hard day at the dismal factory. She runs a noisy, dangerous machine, repeatedly stitching soles to shoes as part of a large assembly line operation. She leaves the factory late in the afternoon, one of the many drained workers breathing the outside air for the first time since very early in the morning. Tired, achy, and hungry, she walks down the sidewalk, being bumped and jostled constantly by the crowd of people going in all directions, amid the additional confusion of yelling paperboys, peddlers, and sidewalk preachers, and the dizzying animation of horses, wagons, and omnibuses snorting and rumbling through the street. Worn out, she feels anything but pretty. Being noticed was frankly the last thing on her mind - she was anxious to be once again hidden away in the privacy of her home.

While trying to avoid being stepped on or tripped by the stampeding herd of feet all around her, her mind replays the upsetting memories from earlier in the day, when she had noticed spots on the backs of her hands while running shoe parts through her machine at the factory. Then when she walked by a smudged mirror on the factory wall, she had glimpsed in her reflection some more unsightly blemishes on her checks and chin as well. Life seemed to be wearing her out and making her old before her time.

She finds some space between the bodies shuffling along the sidewalk and slips herself into Bergengren's drugstore, hoping there might be some cheap and sure solution for her stained skin - something that would help her feel more feminine and less like just another defeated face in the crowd. Feeling a little overwhelmed and lost among all the bottles, boxes, and signs that glare at her everywhere she turns in Bergengren's shop, her eyes are then tenderly invited to a scene in a tall card on the counter. Rendered in soft colors, it appeals to her feeling of femininity that she had worried might be disappearing.

There was nothing dark and harsh in the picture - nothing at all that dragged her thoughts back to the miserable factory floor where she slaved away each day. The two women in the picture understand her - both of them are her: the woman she is, and the woman she wishes she could be. She doesn't have to analyze the scenes; her heart and mind quickly agree that the product advertised is worth a try. She really, really wants to be the beautiful, poised woman it promises she could be. The two hard-earned quarters in the bottom of her purse shine a little against the dark leather, as if a sign that this purchase is, indeed, the right thing to do.

She walks home with her purchase of Mrs. Soule's Moth-Tan, Freckle & Pimple Eradicator, hopeful about something in her life for the first time in weeks.

There are many pieces of Victorian advertising that have survived their century-and-a-half ephemeral passage through time, and I have seen thousands of them, but the Mrs. Soule's counter card that our young heroine saw is truly special and possibly the only surviving example. There had been a tremendous array of "before-and-after" advertisements for all sorts of products, from anti-fat pills to stove polish, and the creativity and artwork are often exemplary pieces of creativity and design. But the counter card for Mrs. Soule's Moth-Tan, Freckle & Pimple Eradicator, abbreviated on the bottle's embossing to Soule's Eradicator, is something very special and in a class of its own. The greatness of Madison Avenue advertising has never excelled this advertising masterpiece, and this blog post intends to give it the few minutes of reverent admiration that it rightly deserves.

"Subliminal advertising" was just being introduced in the early 1880s. For a century the public had been amused and, well, mesmerized by watching friends and family members become unwitting participants as hypnotists seemed to control the actions and words of their subjects without them being conscious of it. In the middle of the decade, Sigmund Freud began using hypnosis in his work to understand the subconscious and unconscious mind. This counter card had done far more than present an obvious before-and-after metaphor: the designer and artist had created an advertising piece that spoke eloquently without words, playing at depth with the potential customer’s fears and dreams. Our factory worker decided to purchase after just a cursory perusal, but let’s break it down like Dr. Freud might have been inclined to do.

Mrs. Soule’s Moth, Tan, Freckle & Pimple Eradicator. Die-cut counter card, about 1885 (Shown on a black background. Height: 9½ inches) The back side has a cardstock kickstand that can be manually angled to allow the display card to be freestanding on the store counter. (Collection of the author; gift of Barbara Rusch.)

The counter card image depicted two conjoined scenes apparently featuring the same woman. In the “before” scene on the left side, the young woman was still in her peignoir, looking self-consciously in her hand mirror as she tussled hopelessly with her hair, trying to figure out how she was going to overcome her real problem: the skin blemishes spotting all over her face and forearms.

She was shown in an interior part of her home, hiding behind a chair and a wall, not at all ready for the world. The “after” image on the right side shows the same young woman, beautiful and ready for any social event: she doesn't have the slightest spot of skin blemish; her skin is flawless and she confidently shows it off with a sleeveless, bustled gown and a daringly plunging décolletage.

She has traded in her symbol of worry, her mirror, for a fancy, fashionable fan, and her other hand reaches not for her hair but for the drapery, purposely pulling it open to let the sunshine into the room where she had previously hidden herself; she is completely ready for a posh party or social.

Behind her were two healthy, lush green houseplants, one in full bloom with golden-colored flowers, while behind the morose “before” woman there is a vase holding only brown stems, suggesting no life, and a drab framed landscape on the wall, with vegetation also in brown.

And lest the message wasn’t clear enough, the artist superimposed three roses on top of the scene: the one on the “after” side was in perfect bloom, just like the ideal woman below it; the rose on the opposite side drooped towards the miserable woman, heavy with decay on its petals and worms on its stem. The third rose was perfectly positioned over the partition that separated the two scenes; in this neutral zone, it was still a bud, not yet bloomed, but pointing hopefully to the banner above that announced the miracle skin cure: "Soule’s Moth-Tan, Freckle & Pimple Eradicator, L. M. Brock & Co., Sole Proprietors, Lynn, Mass. U.S.A." The counter card sign left no question which woman represented the ideal Victorian lady nor could any doubt remain about which skin care product was going to help her achieve the goal.

I would like to think that my fictional customer would have had her dreams come true when she used her bottle of Soule’s Eradicator, but alas, that would not have happened. The published ingredients had no dermatological benefits but did have something sinisterly bad for the skin and body.

The manufacturer, Lemuel Brock, a very successful medicine maker and major candidate for Lynn mayor, promoted that it contained nothing dangerous:

“A great many people have the idea that all skin preparations contain either Bismuth, Arsenic, or Sugar of Lead, and are afraid to use [skin preparations for that reason]. We pledge ourselves that Mrs. Soule’s Eradicator DOES NOT contain any of the above-named ingredients, and we warrant it not to injure the skin, and that a continuation of its use will restore the same to all its youthful fairness.” [emphasis as in original]

He also assured he had further helped his customers by keeping the cost of Soule’s Eradicator way down through the use of a very simple bottle rather than some overcharged decorative container designed to sit prettily on a lady’s vanity, among her fancy perfumes:

“This preparation is not put up in a cut-glass bottle, or fancy jar or pitcher, and then the price fixed to match the glassware. Say one or two dollars per bottle or jar, as the case may be, - but a common white glass bottle that would not be out of place on any lady’s dressing table, and is for sale by all druggists and fancy good dealers for fifty cents per bottle – one-third the price of any other preparation that comes near containing the virtues of the Eradicator.” [emphasis as in original]

In 1890 Brock was taken to court for selling a bottle that contained 60 grains of corrosive sublimate, a chemical compound of mercury and chlorine that is very toxic to humans. Its toxicity is due not just to the mercury but also its corrosive properties which, according to Wikipedia, can cause ulcers to the stomach, mouth, and throat, and corrosive damage to the intestines. It accumulates in the kidneys and causes acute kidney failure. It can also cause burning in the mouth and throat, stomach pain, abdominal discomfort, lethargy, vomiting of blood, corrosive bronchitis, insomnia, excessive salivation, bleeding gums, tremors, and dental problems – even death may occur in as little as twenty-four hours, or as long as two long and lingering weeks.

Lemuel Brock had sold the mercury-laden medicine to a woman who was an undercover agent for the government. Despite the state chemist’s careful chemical analysis and the female agent’s testimony, the judge took the side of Lemuel Brock, “whom he knew[,] rather than that of the woman,” whom he didn’t know. Brock’s case was discharged and he was exonerated.

The counter card for Mrs. Soule’s Eradicator is the keystone of my collection – the quintessential piece of Victorian proprietary medicine advertising – and it was the gift of a dear friend and fellow time traveler. I never assign or measure the monetary value of pieces in my collection, but if I were asked, the answer would be easy – its priceless to me.

For more on Soule's Eradicator, see:

     PROMISING CURES,

Vol.3, Chapter 9: Heroine Addiction

Vol.4, Chapter 10: Exposing the Naked Truth

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine

The Big Green Bottle, Full of Miracles & Tragedy

In the early 1880s, Jacob Welch had accomplished having the biggest furniture store in Lynn, Massachusetts, and he felt he could achieve the same success running a medicine business, just like his friend Charles Pinkham was doing. Brimming with money, Welch just needed to find some medicine in which to invest.

For many decades, Robert W. Lougee, alias Dr. Lougee, had been making and selling his three medicines: Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound, the Juniper Kidney Cure, and Clover Cure “for female weakness,” and he was happy to share an enthralling backstory of how they came to be.

He told his tale of being a “bright and active boy” of thirteen, “unusually intelligent and observing for his years,” and having been the assistant of an Indian doctor “in the wilds of the Granite State” (New Hampshire), tasked with gathering roots and herbs for his medicines, “the potent arcana of the forest that formed his dwelling-place.” But at 70 years old, after a long career of making and selling the medicines on his own, he was ready to sell his secret recipes and his name. In Jacob Welch he had found the prize – an enthusiastic investor. Welch sold his share of the furniture business for $25,000 in 1885, and with those funds, started the Lougee Medicine Company in Lynn.

The formulas that Lougee turned over to Welch were full of the botanical ingredients he had learned about as a youthful assistant to that Indian doctor; they ranged from pumpkin seeds in the Clover Cure to juniper berries in the kidney cure. The Vitalizing Compound was an especially involved mixture of ten ingredients steeped in whiskey: one pound each of wormwood, mandrake, and burdock root; two pounds each of wintergreen, buchu, sarsaparilla, black cherry bark, blood root, and Peruvian bark; and one quart of burnt sugar, all to stand in a barrel of whiskey for about ten days. Now the furniture mogul and the old backwoods healer would work together at making this medicine business a success, just like the Pinkhams had been doing less than a mile away.

Welch took what Lougee had started and redesigned it around a compelling new Lynn testimonial that he hoped would be symbolic of his medicines’ efficacy and profitability:

Lynn, Mass., April 12, 1887. Eight years ago our daughter, Lena, then eight years of age, had a severe attack of Diphtheria, resulting in blood-poisoning, which developed into Scrofula. A malignant ulcer appeared upon her throat, eating away the flesh, and exposing the cords and muscles of the neck, till there was danger of some of the arteries being severed, and she would bleed to death. Another equally virulent ulcer attacked the right leg at the knee, seriously affecting the entire limb. The flesh under the knee was completely eaten away, laying bare the cords and tendons, presenting as did also the throat, a most repulsive and sickening sight. She was completely prostrated; her sufferings were most intense, and her condition in every sense was truly pitiable. … Five years ago last March an experienced and skillful Lynn physician was called, and by his advice she was taken to the country. There she received treatment for three months, after which time, unimproved, she was brought back to Lynn. Another skilled physician of this city then took the case, and at the expiration of two weeks advised her removal to the Massachusetts General Hospital, with the remark, “It is a critical case.”

Five doctors at the hospital told the family to just make Lena as comfortable as possible because that was all that could be done for her at that point. The most recent Lynn physician they had consulted was a Boston surgeon specializing in scrofula, but his efforts didn’t help either, so the parents then took their daughter to a lady physician who treated her for 15 months. While she relieved Lena’s suffering somewhat, no cure was accomplished.

Then we resorted to patent medicines. She took nearly two hundred bottles of one remedy in fifteen months, and followed this with forty bottles of another. As she continued to fail … Dr. R. W. Lougee was sent to us. … Upon taking Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound she began at once to improve, and our pardonable skepticism as to its great virtues was speedily removed. Soon the ulcers began to heal and the cavities to fill with new and healthy tissue, built up by this truly wonderful remedy. To-day nothing remains to indicate the frightful condition of which we have spoken … Her recovery is looked upon … as little short of a miracle, and our gratitude to Dr. Lougee for his agency in that blessed consummation is unspeakable. We hope the knowledge of his great specific, rightly named the Vitalizing Compound, may be spread far and wide. … Our residence is 677 Boston street. We will be pleased to answer all inquiries.

                                                              Mr. R. C. Judkins.

                                                              Mrs. R. C. Judkins.

Label on the bottle's back side.

To keep this miracle in the minds of every shopper, the big green bottle of Vitalizing Compound was adorned with an equally large label featuring a striking image of a healthy, vibrant Lena Judkins preparing to place a floral crown on the head of the venerable, seated doctor. In equally dramatic and varied Victorian type styles the message surrounding the trademarked image read,

Dr. Lougee Your Vitalizing Compound Saved My Life.

Lena’s parents had twice suffered the devastating loss of their other two children within the first two years of life; they were frantic to keep their teenage daughter Lena alive, and by their observations, it seemed that Lougee's Vitalizing Compound succeeded where all others had failed – Lena had healed! Their glowing testimonial of gratitude concluded with the final praise, “Is it not eminently fitting that our daughter, whose life he has thus saved, should crown the aged physician with an immortal wreath of honor?” Lena and Dr. Lougee would live on forever in the drawing on the label.

Unfortunately, from the outset, the Welch’s new medicine business sputtered, despite the miracles it performed upon Lena. Sales and cures came in fits and spurts, while expenses, especially from advertising, oozed steadily like a festering wound. There were occasional customers that said they received some benefit from the medicines, but more letters came in  from those who did not and were looking for their money back. The money was returned to a semi-literate man from Ossippee, New Hampshire, who had written,

I baut this bottle full of your Medicine and they gave me one trial bottle down to rochester on the fair ground[. I] carred it home and took it acording to Derections the man that sold it to me Booked my name and residence and all and thare was a soap man with him[.] they both told me to take it and if it did not do me any good they would return the money if I sent them the bottle to Dr Lougee Lynn Mass. I took both bottles and I want [wasn’t] so well as I ws when I begun to take … .

Similarly, another dissatisfied customer from Claremont, New Hampshire, wrote, “Sins [since] your Medicine has no effect on me I shall expect the dollar by return mail. the medicine does not help me at all.”  Like the others who bought with hope, a man from Concord, New Hampshire, wrote to “Dr Lougee” as submissively as a patient consulting in person with his doctor, even though he was very worried about his situation:

I comence to take your Medicine having Been troble with Schofler [probably scrofula] for a Number of years very Bad. Having a Soure [sore] on my side that had not been heald for 8 years. I have taken 2 Bot[tles] of your Vitalizing Compond and the out side of my Bodie came out all coverd with humor and it Itched all the time. Please Inform me if this is the way the Medicin work on Schofler [scrofula] it is almost a week Since it came out so. I can not see any thing that done it But the Medicin. … .

Label on the bottle's front side.

By August 1888, Welch had used up all $25,000 of his money to build up the business but had poor results – only about $7,000 in sales. He spent far more than he should have on advertising, not to mention his contractual obligation to bankroll old doctor Lougee twelve dollars weekly. There were also the medicine production costs and the expenses and salaries of his traveling salesmen that all kept cutting into dwindling capital. His medicine company had quickly become an open wound, hemorrhaging money. Panicking, he then made matters even worse for himself, trying to staunch the bleeding by lending the business his own money - what he had saved to take care of himself and his family.

Disillusioned and despondent, Welch arranged with Charles Pinkham to take over the manufacture of his medicines at the Pinkham laboratory. The Lougee Company formulas and business records were turned over to Charles and all of its stock and fixtures were loaded into the Pinkham laboratory; then Welch went to New Hampshire where a few weeks later, in a final act of utter desperation, he committed suicide by cutting his throat. He had left his wife and two children with almost nothing on which to live; their future lay in Charles Pinkham’s hands and stacked up on his laboratory floor.

In honor of his friend’s memory and for the sake of Welch’s wife and children, Charles tried to make the Lougee products work, but he was careful not to invest Pinkham company money in the risky Lougee business and aggressive advertising. At Charles’ recommendation, Welch’s family turned over the company to the advertising agency in less than two years. Pinkham’s medicine business soared into history but Lougee’s disappeared into oblivion.

The only known memorial to Dr. Lougee or Jacob Welch are the scarce bottles of Dr. Lougee’s Vitalizing Compound. It is an unusually large and heavy medicine bottle; standing at nine inches tall and weighing in at a chunky 1 lb 8-plus ounces (without liquid contents), it was a commanding presence on store shelves and in a shopper’s hands. It just wasn’t good enough to cure customers or to keep Jacob Welch alive. 

For more on Dr. Lougee and Jacob Welch, see:

PROMISING CURES, Vol.3,

Chapter 9: Heroine Addiction

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine