266- Repackaging the Pill

Roman Mars

Most people are familiar with at least one version of the birth control pill's packaging -- a round plastic disc which opens like a shell and looks like a makeup compact. But the pill wasn’t always packaged this way. The first birth control pill to hit the market came in a simple glass bottle of loose tablets, like any other prescription pill. How the pill traveled from these nondescript bottles into some of the most heavily designed and recognizable pill packages in history, tells a story about the medical and cultural anxieties of the time.