The First Woman To Put Her Face On Packaging Got Trolled Like Crazy [View all]

[HuckleB]

"You ought to feel solemn... that your face pervades the mind of the nation like a nightmare," wrote one early hater.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-first-woman-to-put-her-face-on-packaging-got-trolled-like-crazy

"As every single person on the Internet knows, women who dare to enter the public eye are regularly pilloried. Message boards are rife with misogyny. Trolls lurk under every tweet. "Don't read the comments" has become a necessary mantra.

But as 19th century apothecary Lydia E. Pinkham might attest, none of this is particularly modern. In the late 1800s, Pinkham's face became among the most recognizable in the world—and this brought consequences. Until she came along, the only woman whose image showed up regularly in public was Queen Victoria.

When Pinkham first put herself on a bottle of her bestselling Vegetable Concoction, men sent her hate mail, harping on her haircut and her "cast-iron smile." Journalists mixed her up with other famous women. College choirs made fun of her in song. All because she dared to put her portrait on a label.


Before becoming a well-known medicine maven, Pinkham had led a relatively quiet life. She was a schoolteacher, mother, and dedicated abolitionist in her hometown of Lynn, Massachusetts. She got into preparing medicines at the age of 56, through knack and necessity: the economy was tanking, her family needed money, and she happened to have a great recipe for a much-needed drug.

..."

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Alas, things have not changed much.