Lydia Estes Pinkham was born in Lynn Massachusetts in 1819. She transformed what was an herbal recipe for "female complaints" into a profitable patent medicine business. Pinkham marketed medicinal potions to women in an era when the medical establishment understood little of women's illnesses. She encouraged women to take control of their own health, and offered practical tips for healthy living. Testimonial letters from women who claimed that Pinkham's vegetable compound had cured their health problems became the foundation of her company's marketing strategy.

Pinkham’s entrance into business was precipitated by an unfortunate consequence of the Panic of 1873. During this time, her husband, Isaac Pinkham was essentially ruined financially speaking, along with so many others. In an effort to salvage the family, Mrs. Pinkham took a rise and started to experiment with an herbal remedy for women’s health problems. Early production of the product was carried out in Pinkham’s own kitchen, where she both brewed and bottled the herbal remedy for sales. In time, not only did her husband, but her sons as well, were given a role in Lydia Pinkham’s burgeoning business venture. While her boys went about selling Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, to druggists, she continued to run her modest operation. In 1879, a big change occurred in the company when Pinkham’s son Dan added a label with the likeness of his mother on bottles of the compound as a promotional device.

At her death in 1883, sales in the family business had reached $300,000. The Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company continued to prosper well into the twentieth century. Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines of the nineteenth century. Even today, one can find modern equivalents of Pinkham’s compound. Lydia's skill was in marketing her product directly to women and her company continued to implement her targeted marketing techniques well after her death.

Advertising copy urged women to write to Mrs. Pinkham. They did, and they received answers. The practice continued for decades after Lydia Pinkham's death through messages written by company staff to encourage. These staff-written answers combined forthright talk about women's medical issues, good advice, and, of course, recommendations for her product. In 1905 the Ladies' Home Journal published a photograph of Lydia Pinkham's tombstone and exposed the ruse. The Pinkham company insisted that it had never meant to imply that the letters were being answered by Lydia Pinkham, but by her daughter-in-law, Jennie Pinkham.

In 1922, Lydia's daughter Aroline Chase Pinkham Gove founded the Lydia E. Pinkham Memorial Clinic in Salem, Massachusetts. The clinic provides health services to young mothers and their children. It also has the distinction of being included on the Salem Women's Heritage Trail.