I wrote my dissertation on Lydia Pinkham as a branded personality, and looked at the range of souvenirs and ephemera related to her medical products. I've never heard of a Lydia Pinkham chair before -- was it supposed to have belonged to her? Or does the term refer to its use for childbirth or breastfeeding (using Lydia Pinkham's name as a sly reference to fertility that most early 20th-c. Americans would have easily understood)?
 
The Lynn Historical Society in Lynn, MA (the city where the Pinkham factory produced its proprietary medicines for more than 80 years) has a collection of Lydia Pinkham material. But the bulk of the company's papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute, in Cambridge, MA. I'm not sure they'd be willing to archive a large item such as a chair, but you never know!
 
Do you have any more details? There is a lot of fake Pinkham stuff floating around out there, so I'm suspicious but very intrigued.
 
Elysa
Elysa Engelman. Ph.D.
Exhibit Researcher/Developer
Mystic Seaport
75 Greenmanville Avenue
Mystic, CT 06355
Phone: 860-572-0711 x4071
Fax: 860-572-5371

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