Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup Bottle

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup Bottle

Mothers in the late nineteenth century used Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, made by Curtis & Perkins of Bangor, Maine, to ease their babies’ teething pain and other ailments. It lived up to its name, soothing distressed children into a peaceful sleep, a far cry from the painful medical practices of the era. Composed of a high dose of morphine dissolved in grain alcohol, the product caused many infant deaths throughout its lifespan. A series of federal laws passed in the early twentieth century forced a reformulation. Stripped of intoxicating qualities and increasingly obsolete in an age of “scientific” child-rearing, it was quietly withdrawn from the market around 1920.

Read more about this object: https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/11

Recovered from excavation prior to construction of Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.

Rutgers University-Camden

c. 1850-1875; photograph, April 2018.

Lucy Davis (Graduate Student, American Material Culture, Spring 2018); photograph by Jacob Lechner.

Collection of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts

Affleck, Richard, George Cress, Ingrid Weubber, Rebecca White, Kimberly Morrell, and Thomas Kutys. Phase II and Data-Recovery Archaeological Excavations of the Smith-Maskell Site Cooper Street Development Camden, New Jersey. Archaeological Excavation Report, Burlington: URS Corporation.

Glass bottle, nearly 5 inches tall and 1 inch in diameter.

Photograph