An 8-year-old Henry John Heinz began his entrepreneurial career in 1852 selling extra vegetables from his mother’s garden; seven years later, he started bottling and selling horseradish. In 1869, Heinz and L. Clarence Noble launch Heinz and Noble,…
1867-1951
Peter Schoenhofen bought out out his partner’s interest in 1867, renaming their brewery the Peter Schoenhofen Brewing Company. Its most popular product was Edelweiss beer (see advertisement below). After Prohibition, the company…
An illustration of a throat, mouth and tongue to show signs of Diphtheria, with a caption reading "Plate XI. Note the extension of the false membrane to the soft palate."
Photograph of poster relating to the epidemic of influenza in Chicago occurring during the fall of 1918. Part of the text reads, "Influenza frequently complicated with pneumonia is prevalent at this time throughout America. This theatre is…
August H. Heisey, born in Germany in 1842, immigrated to the United States in 1843, setting up home in Pennsylvania. In 1861, Heisey got into the glass business working as a clerk for King Glass Company in Pittsburgh. After fighting for the Union…
1889-1956/1975
Emerson Drug Company was founded in 1890, two years after Isaac E. Emerson had an idea for a headache-curing medicine while working at a Baltimore drugstore. Emerson trademarked Bromo-Seltzer in 1889. An 1899 ad touting…
1893-1910
Roxbury Distilling Company produced liquor, most famously Roxbury Rye, from 1893 to 1910. The company’s founder, George T. Gambrill was convicted of fraud in 1910 and the company was shut down. Gambrill’s most famous product, Roxbury…
1881-1943
Andrew Scherer (pictured below in a 1941 Chicago Tribune article) opened his pharmacy on State and Division in 1886, five years after his first store. The pharmacy served many in the Gold Coast, and a bottle of Scherer’s was found at the…
1881-1946
Brothers Benjamin and Samuel Foster brought young pharmacist Malcomb Fairchild into their drug manufacturing partnership in 1881. The company mostly sold digestive products, a bottle of which was found at the Charnley-Persky House in 2015…
1884-1917
Price Baking Powder Company was established in 1884, nearly twenty years after Vincent Price and Charles Steele first started manufacturing baking powder in Chicago. The company was most famous for its baking powder, but it also produced…
1850-1953
Sharp & Dohme formed their pharmaceutical partnership in 1860, expanding to large scale manufacturing by 1865. Their Chicago branch opened in 1888, and an amber bottle made by Sharp & Dohme was found at the Charnley-Persky House in 2015…
1863-1930s
By far the most famous product produced by this company was their Hunyadi Janos Mineral Spring Water, named for a 15th-century Hungarian hero; the base of a bottle of this water was found at the Charnley-Persky House in 2015 (see below).…
1877-1894
Brothers Thomas and William Wood established their pottery on the Burslem Branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal, near a recently-built wharf; fittingly, they called the venture New Wharf Pottery. The 1880 advertisement below promotes the…
An aqua base of a bottle manufactured by the Adolphus G. Busch Manufacturing Company between 1908 and 1920, and an advertisement for the company from 1899, seven years after the company was incorporated.
1854-1993
John Doulton opened Doulton & Co. in 1854, producing industrial ceramics (as advertised in the 1870 image below); the company became famous in the last half of this century for its stoneware figurines. King Edward VII granted Doulton a…
1892-1941
Bourne & Leigh was one of many potteries in this area in the 19th-century; established in 1892, the firm produced earthenware in a variety of patterns (see the May Blossom pattern in the 1922 ad below). Bourne & Leigh was in business until…
