Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello, it is Beckett. Welcome to the show. Women's health has been in the news a lot lately,

and we just wanted to bring back the story of a pioneer in that field when it was taboo to even talk about certain things.

Lydia Pinkham empowered women to take control of their own health.

This episode was last released in 2015. Enjoy the show.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Are your parts broken? Are your emotions leaking out? Are you full of hysteria?

Hide in the closet when the doctor comes around, because Lydia Pinkham can fix you right up.

D.S.

Let's talk about Lydia Pinkham.

But first, let's drop her into history. In 1873, Queen Victoria's Alexander Palace opened, and then burned down 16 days later.

Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for voting. Prince Edward Island joined Canada as the seventh province.

San Francisco's first cable car service began. Field and Stream Magazine is first published in PT Barton's greatest show on Earth's debuts.

Now the listed performer Colette is born, Napoleon Bonaparte dies, and the panic of 1873 begat a depression which begat the creation of Lydia Pinkham Medicine company,

and an innovative marketer and businesswoman gets her professional start.

Lydia Estes was born February 9th, 1819, and Lynn Massachusetts. She was the 10th of 12 children of William and Rebecca Estes.

Papah, who was known by all, as Billy had been a shoemaker that is to say a cord-weiner, which just sounds fancier,

but he had very shrewdly parlayed some land he owned into assault works during the war of 1812, and had basically raked it in.

So by the time Lydia came along, let's call Papah a gentleman farmer. More gentlemen than farmer, honestly, as he kept making these really great real estate investments,

he seemed to have some intuition. Where is development going to go? Good job, Papah. The Estes were Quakers.

I know you all think of the Black Cote of the Quaker Roads Man, and you think super conservative, but O-Conter Air Quakers were extremely radical for their day.

Women were equaled women in church, for example, and they believed good works were kind of your passport in.

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