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William H. Comstock Company, Limited papers

 Collection
Identifier: D.71

Biographical / Historical note

The William H. Comstock Company, Ltd., traced its origins to 1833, when Edwin Comstock founded a drug business at New York City. With his death in 1833, control of the company passed to a succession of his brothers, all of whom employed his son, William Henry Comstock, as a clerk. After the dissolution of a series of partnerships among Edwin's brothers, a partnership was formed in 1853 which included William. By 1867, William was the sole remaining member of the partnership that controlled the firm, and he moved the company to Morristown, New York, a small town in the Adirondacks. From the 1860's until the beginning of World War I, the Comstock firm, along with the rest of the patent medicine industry, enjoyed its best years. The company purveyed numerous medicines, most of which were purported to be capable of curing unusually large numbers of illnesses. The sales volume of the company seems to have peaked around 1910; thereafter, the fortunes of the Comstock company, like those of the rest of the patent medicine industry, began to decline. An expanding foreign market seems to have helped to make up for some of the losses in domestic sales, but by the 1930's the company's sales volume had declined precipitously. This trend continued in the 1940's, and by the late 1950's, the work force had shrunk to three persons. With the death of William H. Comstock II in 1959, the Comstock facilities at Morristown were closed, and the company was dissolved the following year.

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of samples of the company's products, advertisements, sheets of package labels, correspondence with the company's agents, contracts, legal papers pertaining to litigation in which the company was involved, invoices for raw materials, and payroll records. Also included is a copy of History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, by Robert B. Shaw, Associate Professor of Accounting and History at Clarkson.

Creator

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1833-1972

Language of Materials

English

Extent

2 box(es) (2 boxes, 1 volume)

Access

The William H. Comstock Company, Limited Papers is open for research use. Researchers are advised to contact the Rare Books, Special Collections & Preservation Department prior to visiting. Upon arrival, researchers will also be asked to fill out a registration form and provide photo identification.

Use

In consultation with a curator, reproductions may be made upon request. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from a curator. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The papers were donated to the University of Rochester Library by Robert B. Shaw in 1975. Additional labels were donated to the collection by Robert Baron of Worcester, MA, December, 30, 2008.

Preferred Citation

[Item title, item date], William H. Comstock Company, Limited Papers, D.71, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester

Related Archival Materials

An additional copy of History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills, by Robert B. Shaw, has been cataloged as Rare Books HD 9666.9 C62 S46 1972.

Title
William H. Comstock Company, Ltd. papers
Author
Finding aid prepared by Rare Books and Special Collections staff
Date
undated
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Library Details

Part of the Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation Library

Contact:
Rochester NY 14627-0055 USA