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.
- Schering Chemical Ltd. of Argentina produced this Gynovlar brand oral contraceptive in 1966. Originally founded in Berlin in 1851, Schering had a variety of subsidiaries in Latin America, including a large presence in Argentina. In 1961 Schering released Anovlar, the company’s first oral contraceptive, followed by Gynovlar in 1966. Gynovlar was packaged in a pink and white cardboard box containing a 21-dose silver blister pack and a sheet of paper bearing instructions in Spanish.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- 1966
- Credit Line
- Gift of Margaret Sanger Center
- Physical Description
- acetato de nor-etisterona, 3 mg (drug active ingredients)
- etinilestradiol, 0.05 mg (drug active ingredients)
- Measurements
- overall: 6.1 cm x 15.7 cm x 1.3 cm; 2 3/8 in x 6 3/16 in x 1/2 in
- overall: 5/8 in x 6 1/4 in x 2 1/2 in; 1.5875 cm x 15.875 cm x 6.35 cm
- Object Name
- contraceptive, oral
- Other Terms
- Contraceptives; Patent Medicines; Drugs; Non-Liquid
