Pharmacy - Pharmaceutical Elegance 1876

by Mike Savad

Title

Pharmacy - Pharmaceutical Elegance 1876

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Colorized Photo

Description

Colorized photo from 1876
Original title: John Wyeth & Bro.'s exhibit--Main Building
Photographer: Centennial Photographic Co.
Location: 4231 Ave of the Republic, Philadelphia, PA

This is the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia. They had over 14,000 vendors there, each showing off their latest creation, invention, companies and ideas.

This is the Wyeth Pharmaceutical company, it was founded in America in 1860. Pharmacists John and Frank Wyeth opened a drugstore and small research lab on Walnut Street in Philadelphia. In 1862, doctors suggested they manufactured large quantities of commonly ordered medicine. They listened and they were successful, by 1864 they began supplying medicines and beef extract to the Union Army during the Civil War.

In 1872, they hired a person named Henry Bowers, he developed one of the first rotary compressed tablet machines in the United States. With that invention it allowed them to mass produce medicine a lot faster, and it was far more precise than rolling them out by hand.

In 1876 (present time), they entered an exhibit into this Centennial Exposition, where they won a number of awards. In 1883 they opened a vaccine production in Montreal Canada.

While in operation they were known as having the "elegance pharmacy". They striven for the medicine to taste good and look good. They also packaged everything in an attractive way, filling blue bottles with medicine. These bottles are sought by collectors.

Eventually the name was sold to other companies but finally went out of business officially in 2009. I'd say they had a pretty good run.

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June 28th, 2022

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