1860s AYER'S Hair Vigor J. C. AYER & CO. LOWELL, MASS Bottle w full labels

Description

1860s AYER'S Hair Vigor J. C. AYER & CO. LOWELL, MASS Bottle w full labels and cork.
This bottle is a brown amber glass. It is about 8" tall with a base of 3" x 1.5". It weighs about 11 ounces. The label is mostly intact but does show signs of ageing
. Please review the photos carefully.
Made by J. C. Ayer and Company, Practical and Analytical Chemists, Lowell, Mass., in the 1860s, Ayer’s Hair Vigor "Restores grey hair to its natural vitality and color," but "does not color the hair." Advertisements pronounced that it was "free from uncleanly dangerous or injurious substances" and that it would cure dandruff and stop falling hair. Patented in 1868, this was the only Ayer product to have a patent, although the company sold a variety of health-related products popularly known as "patent medicines."
Along with these other medicines, Ayer’s Hair Vigor was advertised in Ayer’s American Almanac, which was first published in the mid-19th century and continued into the 1920s. The almanac featured astronomical, astrological, and weather information for the year, as well as medical advice promoting the company’s products. The indications or uses for this product as provided by the manufacturer are: For Restoring the Natural Vitality and Color of the Hair.
Shipped with USPS Priority Mail Service
**Please note all sales are final.  There are no returns, trades, or exchanges permitted. Please review photos closely as they are part of the item description.
Described to the best of my abilities. Feel free to message me for additional details.
The winning buyer is asked to please make payment within 3 days of winning this sale.  Thank you!
James Cook Ayer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  Ayer Lion, resting place of Dr. J.C. Ayer, patent medicine tycoon, Lowell Cemetery, Lowell, Massachusetts James Cook Ayer (5 May 1818 in Groton, Connecticut – 3 July 1878 in Winchendon, Massachusetts) was the wealthiest patent medicine businessman of his day.[1]  Early life At the age of 13, he moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, and resided there with his uncle. Ayer was also brother of wealthy industrialist Frederick Ayer.  His education was obtained at the public schools, where at one time he was a classmate of Gen. Butler, and subsequently at the Westford Academy, after which he was apprenticed to James C. Robbins, a druggist in Lowell. While there he studied medicine, and later he graduated from the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania.[2]  Career  Dr Ayer's laboratory on right, in Lowell. Ayer never practiced medicine, but devoted his principal attention to pharmaceutical chemistry and the compounding of medicines. His success in this line was very great, and soon led him to establish a factory in Lowell for the manufacture of his medicinal preparations, which became one of the largest of its kind in the world, and was magnificently equipped. He accumulated a fortune estimated at ,000,000.[2]  Much of his success was due to his advertising, on which he spent 0,000 a year, and he annually published an almanac, distributing 5,000,000 copies each year.[3] Editions in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, were regularly issued. In 1874 he accepted the Republican nomination for the United States Congress in the 7th Massachusetts District, but was defeated.[2]  In addition to his patent medicine business, Dr. Ayer was involved in textile production in Lowell, Massachusetts with his brother.  Personal life His son, Frederick Fanning Ayer, born 1851, became a lawyer and philanthropist, and was director or stockholder of many corporations.[4]   Ayer Lion, Lowell Cemetery He died in an insane asylum on July 3, 1878 and is interred at Lowell Cemetery.[1]  Legacy The monument at Ayer's gravesite, a life-size marble lion sculpted by Albert Bruce-Joy, is one of the best known at Lowell Cemetery.[5][6]  The town of Ayer, Mass., was named after him.[3]
James Cook Ayer, Sarsaparilla King of Lowell, Mass.  In 1843, James Cook Ayer mixed up a cherry cough medicine in a Lowell, Mass., apothecary while his boss was on vacation in Europe.  The cough medicine, known as ‘Cherry pectoral,’ marked Ayer’s first step on the road to a fortune.  It was followed by a strong laxative called Cathartic Pills, a blood medicine called Sarsaparilla that was supposed to cure syphilis, a cure for malaria called Ague Cure, and a hair restorer called Hair Vigor.  James Cook Ayer sarsaparilla James Cook Ayer would become the most successful patent medicine manufacturer of his age. He accumulated one of the great fortunes of the era, an estimated million.  ADVERTISING He was born May 5, 1818 in Groton, Conn. His father died when he was seven, and at 13 he was sent to live with his uncle, a manufacturer who later became a mayor of the new city of Lowell, Mass. He attended public schools in Lowell; one of his classmates was Benjamin Butler. At 19 he became an apprentice to an apothecary, Jacob Robbins. He also studied medicine with a local doctor, Samuel Dana, eventually graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a medical degree in 1860.  james cook ayer ague cureAyer was more interested in selling medicines than in practicing medicine. When he was 22, he bought the apothecary shop for ,486.61 with money borrowed from his uncle. He paid him back in three years. Physicians happily prescribed Ayer’s medicines, but the real secret to his success was advertising. He spent 0,000 a year on advertisements that promoted the benefits of his medicines with charming, whimsical illustrations. He distributed millions of free copies of an almanac that hawked his cures.  Ayer advertised cherry pectoral as a cure for ‘coughs, colds, asthma, croup, laryngitis, bronchitis, whooping cough and consumption.’ His most popular product, sarsaparilla, was ‘a real blessing that purifies the blood, stimulates the vital functions, restores and preserves health, and infuses new life and vigor throughout the whole system. He recommended it for jaundice, dyspepsia, pimples, boils, ringworm, female weaknesses and ‘lassitude and debility peculiar to the Spring.’  KA-CHING Ayer built a state-of-the-art factory in Lowell to produce vast quantities of medicines that made him a fortune. He employed 150 people. In one year the factory processed 325,000 pounds of drugs, 220,000 gallons of spirits and 400,000 pounds of sugar. He sold his products around the world, and the factory continued to produce drugs until the 1940s.james cook ayer cherry pectoral  In 1855, Ayer brought his brother Frederick into the business. With the profit from their patent medicine business they invested in textile mills and other ventures.  QUACK? Some doctors criticized Ayer’s medicines, partly because they cut into their business, and partly because Ayer advertised so heavily – something they though unseemly.  He was accused of using misleading advertising to sell quack medicines and miracle cures.  His defenders say Ayer’s claims were well within the bounds of medical knowledge in the 19th century.  Cherry pectoral contained three grams of morphine – but that was a lot less than doctors were prescribing at the time.  Some of Ayer’s products contained small amounts of alcohol to preserve the plant material that comprised his medicines. But certainly some of his products did not live up to their billing.  BUT SOME MEDICINES DID WORK Sarsaparilla didn’t work. Hair Vigor didn’t work. But Ague Cure contained bark from the cinchona tree – which later became known as quinine and was very effective in fighting malaria.  James Cook Ayer   Cherry pectoral did not cure lung ailments, as advertised, but it did treat the symptoms of a cold, which helps patients improve.  In 1874, Ayer managed to win the Republican nomination for Congress from the district representing Lowell. He lost, because of his ‘cold manner.’ According to his obituary, opposition to his candidacy was so strong he became unhinged. He grew so violent he ended up in an insane asylum in New Jersey for months.  James Cook Ayer died at the age of 60 on July 3, 1878 in Winchendon, Mass.  The town of Ayer, Mass., was named after him.
DEATH OF DR. James C. Ayer. Dr. James C. Ayer, the well-known patent medicine proprietor, died yesterday at Winchendon, Mass. For th epast two years he had been in extremely poor health, and for some part of that period his mental condition was such that he had ot be confind in an asylum for the insane. Dr. Ayer was undoubtedly the wealthiest maker of patent medicines in this country. He had been engage in the manufacture of pills and syrups for many years, ahd his name known through his medicines all over the world. In the later years of his life, before his mind became unbalanced, he was desirous to become known to the public as a statesman, and not alone as a maker of pills. Having great financial interests in Lowell, Mass., where he resided, and in its surrounding towns, he succeded in October, 1874 through agents, while he was in Europe, in procuring the Republican nomination for Congress in the Seventh Massachusetts District. A great deal of opposition to him was made on account of his cold manners, and he was defeated by the Democratic candidate Mr. Tarbox. A few days subsequent to the election the superabundant ill-feeling toward him in the town of Ayer - which is named after him - found expression in the public burning of his effigy. It seems likely that brooding over his defeated hope of aquiring polictical position, and over hte indignities case upon him by the men he expected to rally to his support, cause his mind to become unhinged. In June, 1876, he became so violent he was conveyed to a private asylum in New-Jersey, where he remained for some months.
AYER, James Cook, manufacturer, b. in Groton, Conn., 5 May, 1818; d. in Winchendon, Mass., 3 July, 1878. At the age of thirteen he removed to Lowell, and there resided with his uncle. His education was obtained at the public schools, where at one time he was a classmate of Gen. Butler, and subsequently at the Westford academy, after which he was apprenticed to James C. Robbins, a druggist in Lowell. While there he studied medicine, and later he was graduated at the medical department of the university of Pennsylvania. He never practised, but devoted his principal attention to pharmaceutical chemistry and the compounding of medicines. His success in this line was very great, and soon led him to establish in Lowell a factory for the manufacture of his medicinal preparations, which became one of the largest of its kind in the world, and was magnificently equipped. He accumulated a fortune estimated at ,000,000. Much of his success was due to his advertising, and he published annually an almanac, 5,000,000 copies of which were gratuitously distributed each year. Editions in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, were regularly issued. In 1874 he accepted the republican nomination for congress in the 7th Massachusetts district, but was defeated. Anxiety and care brought about a brain difficulty, and for some time prior to his death he was confined in an asylum. His widow died 3 Jan., 1898.
FREDERICK FANNING AYER
Ayer, Frederick Fanning, lawyer; born Lowell, Mass., son James Cook and Josephine Mellen (Southwick) Ayer; grandfather, Royal Southwick, Lowell, Mass.; grandmother, sister of late II. B. Clafiin; grad. Harvard Coll., A.B., 1873; studied at Harvard Law School; unmarried. Admitted to Mass. Bar, 1875; since father's death, 1878, has managed the great properties of the Ayer estate; presented Ayer Memorial Library, costing ,000, to town of Ayer, Mass.; director Lowell & Andover R. R., J. C. Ayer Co ; large stockholder in the N. Y. Tribune Assn., the Tremont and Suffolk Mills, etc. Clubs: Union League, University, Metropolitan, Riding, Down Town. Residence: 5 W. 57th St. Address: Mills Bldg., N. Y. City. Author of "Bell and Wing" (1260 pages of verse). MIDDLESEX
What a site! The Lowell Cemetery celebrates its 175th anniversary and the ‘serenity of nature’ By CHRIS CAMIRE | PUBLISHED: June 16, 2016 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: July 11, 2019 at 12:00 a.m. LOWELL — One afternoon earlier this month, a group of 125 fourth graders from the city’s Lincoln Elementary School took a tour of the Lowell Cemetery, absorbing the site’s 62 acres of architecture, scenery and history.  Michael Lally, the cemetery’s business manager, said one precocious pupil asked why he and his classmates had been taken to a place some might consider morbid.  “This little kid said to his teacher, ‘My mother wants to know why you’re bringing us to a cemetery,'” Lally recalled in a recent interview inside his spacious office on Knapp Avenue. “And the teacher said, ‘Because in the cemetery we can see hundreds of pieces of sculpture for free.'”  Lally, and many others in the region, describe the Lowell Cemetery as one of the city’s hidden jewels. Opened in 1841 at a time when public greenspace was scarce, the cemetery was conceived as a place for Lowellians to not only bury the dead, but to experience the serenity of nature.  The cemetery is celebrating its 175th anniversary with two events this Saturday. An art show featuring photos, drawings and paintings by local artists showcasing the cemetery’s history will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. At 1 p.m., local historian Richard Howe will lead a tour of the cemetery starting at the Lawrence Street entrance.  Howe has been conducting tours of the cemetery since 2009. He took over the role of tour guide from the late Catherine Goodwin, who started her tours in 1981. Howe’s tours, which have attracted as many as 160 people, serve as a fascinating history lesson of the cemetery’s characters and sculptures.  One highlight is the Ayer Lion, a 25-ton, life-sized lion sculpture that sits on marble blocks. The monument was built at the gravesite of James Cook Ayer, a medicine manufacturer who died in 1878 as Lowell’s wealthiest resident.  “That’s the most iconic one,” said Howe, who is also the Middlesex North District register of deeds.  Another stop along the tour is at the burial site of Clara Bonney, who died of tuberculosis in Lowell in 1894 at the age of 39. The site features a ghostly statue of a woman emerging from a large piece of fabric draped over her body.  “That’s a famous one,” said Howe, noting that Bonney’s family hired the artist Frank Elwell, who oversaw the sculpture department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, to create the piece. Elwell called the sculpture “New Life.”  Howe also highlights the Mill Girl monument, which is dedicated to Louisa Maria Wells, a Lowell mill worker who never married or had children. Wells died in 1886 at the age of 68. She left a will that said the entirety of her ,000 estate (about 0,000 today) should go toward building “a suitable and proper monument” on her grave at the Lowell Cemetery.  The will was disputed by Wells’ living relatives. After a 16 year court battle, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Wells’ favor.  The executor of Wells’ estate hired sculptor Daniel Chester French, then known for sculpting the Minute Man statue in Concord and the statue of John Harvard in Harvard University’s Harvard Yard, to complete the sculpture. The design features an angel of mercy looking down at the figure of a tired worker holding a bobbin.  French would go on to design the stature of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  Bridget Marshall, an English professor at UMass Lowell, recently gave a talk at the cemetery focusing on several of the Lowell mill girls who are buried there, including Wells. Marshall said the cemetery was a refuge for many mill girls in the 19th century who were living in an urban environment for the first time.  “This was a place they went to for pleasure, for enjoyment, to experience nature, and to pay their respects,” said Marshall. “I think it’s really interesting that a cemetery could be a place of recreation in a way that we really don’t tend to think about them now.”  The Lowell Cemetery was conceived by a group of prominent Lowell citizens in 1840 as a private, non-sectarian, non-profit cemetery. Its design was modeled after Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, which was the first garden cemetery in the U.S.  Garden cemeteries emphasized the physical beauty of the surroundings, which was in sharp contrast to earlier burial grounds, which often consisted of a disorganized plot of land next to a church, said Lewis Karabatsos, who sits on the cemetery’s Board of Directors.  “Instead of these very standard cemeteries, where you just lined people up in an open field, these were cemeteries that were meant to take advantage of nature,” said Karabatsos. “They had trails and plantings and trees and ponds.”  Burials still regularly occur at the Lowell Cemetery. Last fall, the construction of a columbarium designed to hold about 975 urns was completed, which will meet rising cremation rates.  “We’re still very active,” said James Latham, president of the cemetery’s Board of Directors. “We are actively making niches in the columbarium available to people. We still have lots for sale, and there are even areas that are available for future development.”  Twenty-three of the cemetery’s 85 acres are untouched, to be exact.  Lally marvels at how diverse the cemetery has become in its 175 year history. Captains of industry are buried next to blue collar workers, famed politicians are laid to rest among everyday people. Almost every religion is represented.  “If you drive through, there is always something interesting to see,” he said. “When I come to work in the morning, the sun is shining toward me. The way the light plays through the trees is absolutely beautiful. Even in the middle of the winter, it is a beautiful place.”
A sparkling mint cobalt blue Ayer's Hair Vigor bottle with its original cobalt glass crown stopper!....AYER'S / HAIR VIGOR boldly emb on opp.side panels.....machine made...ring collar with cobalt blue stopper that has cork liner inside neck of bottle....cobalt blue....square....6 1/4"tall (7"with stopper)....excellent shiny nice condition with no chips or damage of any kind to bottle or stopper. A sparkling clean bottle with no haze. Finest possible example of this 100 years old bottle. It was produced by J.C.Ayer & Co of Lowell, Mass....