Commodities in History

Collects, preserves, makes available, and interprets for diverse audiences one of the world's richest collections of historical material related to human health and disease.

The Library's digital collections cover a wide variety of topics, including asylums, food, sex and sexual health, genetics, public health and war.
Published books, pamphlets, archives, posters, photographs, and film and sound recordings are completely free to view.

Interface and most content in English.
The Patent Medicine collection consists of a wide range of materials documenting the patent medicine industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s and 1970s.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
A collection of 247 patent medicine trade cards. Patent medicines were medical compounds sold under a variety of names and labels, though they were for the most part actually trademarked medicines, not patented. The trade cards are small, colorfully illustrated advertising cards touting a particular medicine and its many cures. The era of patent medicine began to unravel in the U.S. with the passage of the first Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
Small exhibit from the Digital Public Library of America focusing on the idea of the pharmacy and patent medicine in the 19th century.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
The William H. Helfand Collection of Pharmaceutical Trade Cards contains approximately 300 colorful pharmaceutical trade cards produced in the U.S. and France between 1875 and 1895 that were used to advertise a wide range of goods in the nineteenth century; although introduced (in the mid-eighteenth century) as an ephemeral form of advertisement, they soon became collectors' items and were mass-produced in collectible 'series' comparable to those produced by sports teams in the twentieth century.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
Includes photographs, advertisements, and other ephemera looking at 19th and 20th century English speaking world. Includes postcards on topics like the Opium Wars.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
The Smithsonian Institution began to collect objects related to health and medicine in 1881. It first obtained examples of patent medicines in 1930, acquiring packages of Haarlem Oil (or Dutch Drops), Dr. John Hooper’s Female Pills, and Roche’s Herbal Embrocation. Since then the Smithsonian’s collection of patent medicines has expanded to over 4,000 products, dating from the 19th century to the present day.
Open Access.

Interface and content in English.
Material looks at the 19th and early 20th century. Focuses on medicine, pharmaceuticals, respiratory and safety equipment, and more. Includes material used for the sale and transport of opiates.
Open Access.