Exhibit: Beef, Iron and Wine: Late 19th and Early 20th Century Pharmacy & Medicine in Plainfield

The Library is happy to announce our fall exhibit in the Library lobby wall case. There are three components to this display. The first portion, which forms the basis of the display, comes from the Historical Society of Plainfield / Drake House Museum. The Drake House has loaned to the Library a selection of historical medicine bottles from their Labaw Family Collection. The 24 bottles and containers date from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, and some still contain medicines that were popular at that time.  Many of these remedies were prescribed by local doctors and filled by Plainfield druggists C. M. Nagle, L. W. Randolph, and Cadmus Pharmacy, to name a few.

The second portion comes from an Eagle Scout project completed by Cyril Maliakal in August 2022. This includes Cyril’s research and narrative videos, for each of the Drake House bottles, which the Library has combined and captioned to present on a video monitor in the display.

The final part comes from the Library’s own archive of historical materials. These items include additional bottles, as well as other medicine-related artifacts, ephemera, photographs, and postcards.

The exhibition opens September 12, 2022, and will run through November 12, 2022.  It is free to the public.