Object Details
- Description (Brief)
- The popularity of “the Pill” created a new market for pharmaceutical companies. For the first time, healthy women would be taking medication for an extended period of time. Pill manufacturers developed unique packaging in order to distinguish their product from those of their competitors and build brand loyalty. Packaging design often incorporated a “memory aid” to assist women in tracking their daily pill regimen, as well as styled cases to allow pills to be discreetly carried in bags and purses. The National Museum of American History’s Division of Medicine and Science’s collection of oral contraceptives illustrates some of the changes that the packaging and marketing of the Pill underwent from its inception in 1960 to the present.
- Organon International of Oss, Holland, produced this Desogen oral contraceptive at their American subsidiary in West Orange, New Jersey, around 2002. The purple foil wrapper contains a professional sample consisting of a 28-day monthly regimen of pills, including 7 inert pills. Many companies included a fourth week of inert pills so women could maintain their routine of taking a daily pill.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Organon Inc.
- date made
- ca 2002
- Physical Description
- desogestrel, 0.15 mg (drug active ingredients)
- ethinyl estradiol, 0.03 mg (drug active ingredients)
- Measurements
- overall: 13 cm x 6.4 cm x .9 cm; 5 1/8 in x 2 1/2 in x 3/8 in
- overall: 3/8 in x 2 1/2 in x 5 1/8 in; .9525 cm x 6.35 cm x 13.0175 cm
- Object Name
- oral contraceptive
- contraceptive, oral
