Although Lydia Pinkham began selling her pat ent medicine in 1875, it was still popular, in the 1920s. In 1925 it sold almos three times as much as it had sold in any previous year. Mrs. Pinkham was one of the first women to establish a flourishing business. Her advertising catered to "women's complaints" and took advantage of lack of satisfaction at home and antagonism to males in general. The increased interest in feminism that accompanied the right to vote for women in 1920 provided encouragements for such hostility. Robert C. Washburn, writing for, the American Mercury, explained, "If part of Lydia Pinkham's success was thus due to the fact that she filled her sails with wind from the fringes of the feminist hurricane that was sweeping the country, another source of strength was that she put her finger on the crying need of her sex...