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.
- The Syntex Corporation of Humacoa, Puerto Rico, manufactured this Norinyl 1/80 brand oral contraceptive around 1978. The medication was packaged in a cardboard sleeve decorated with images of flowers and a bird. The medicine was dispensed in Syntex’s trademarked Memorette container that features a female bust in profile embossed on the lid. Inside the container is a 21-pill blister pack that organizes the monthly regimen into three rows of 7 pills that are numbered 1–21.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Syntex Inc.
- Syntex
- date made
- ca 1978
- Credit Line
- Gift of Gladys Abell and Lester D. Johnson, Jr., M.D.
- Physical Description
- norethindrone, 1 mg (drug active ingredients)
- mestranol, 0.08 mg (drug active ingredients)
- Measurements
- overall: 11.8 cm x 9.3 cm x 2 cm; 4 5/8 in x 3 11/16 in x 13/16 in
- overall: 7/8 in x 5 3/8 in x 3 7/8 in; 2.2225 cm x 13.6525 cm x 9.8425 cm
- Object Name
- contraceptive, oral
- oral contraceptive
- Other Terms
- contraceptive, oral; Contraceptives; Patent Medicines; Drugs; Non-Liquid
