In 1881 Bloomington was celebrating its first fifty years of existence as a city. The Pantagraph enumerated the many manufacturing businesses in town and Wakefield's was prominent among them. The business was established in 1846 by Cyrenius Wakefield and had operated in the same location for 68 years. Delilah Evans was the first school teacher in Blooming Grove, and she said that one of the few books available for teaching children was an almanac. An almanac was often a rich source of information as well as advertising for the publisher. It was a commonly owned publication to which most families had access. (Click on the image to see the entire almanac.)
Where the article says that 50 "hands" were employed, we assume that women as well as men were employed at Wakefield's factory, because other commentary specifies the number of men employed. The other businesses which employed women were the woolen mills and the overall factory.
In 1914 when the new high school was being built, the Wakefield Medicine company was still in operation and was going to continue production in half of the buildings seen in this Sunburn Map, until a new location could be established. The pink color in the map indicates the buildings were built of brick. The yellow indicates wood frame construction. It was also in 1914 that Cyrenius' grandson, Louis O. Eddy purchased the Wakefield Medicine Company and all its equipment and goodwill for $30,100.
The Almanac published by Wakefield was published on the second floor of the building facing the street. One copy of this almanac has been preserved on the Internet Archive. The building was at least three stories high and the folding (of the almanac?) took place on the third floor. Storage of the drugs was on the second floor. To keep his building secure, Wakefield employed a watchman every night and on Sundays. There would be no need for a watchman on Saturday, because the employees would have been working on Saturday!
Just one of the many medicines produced by Wakefield was the Blackberry Balsam which was a sure cure for diarrhea and the many complaints associated with this symptom. In 1952 Wakefield's Blackberry Balsam was still being produced in Bloomington at 210 E. Market Street in a tiny factory run by just a few employees. Supplying the ingredients for all the medicines became difficult after WWI, and production ceased, except for Wakefield's Blackberry Balsam, which continued to be a popular item.
The ingredients of this Balsam were shared in the Pantagraph in 1952: blackberry root, white oak bark, columbo root, rhubarb root, Culver's root, prickly ash bark, catechu gum, potassium carbonate, ginger, cranesbill, erigeron, sodium benzyl succinate, and camphor. Peppermint and anise were added for flavoring. The ingredients came from all over the world: ginger from Jamaica, clove oil from Madagascar and rhubarb root from China. Most of the remaining ingredients came from the southeast United States. It took 14 days for a batch of the balsam to cure and the factory produced it in six 30 gallon vats, rotating the vats in production. Sales were only to the wholesale market and the labels, bearing the likeness of Cyrenius Wakefield, were pasted on by hand! Three employees were named in the article: Albert Freese, Gladys Swift and Agnes Ziemans.
Although we associate the zodiac and astrology with the sixties and hippies, Wakefield featured the zodiac on the very first page of his almanac, indicating the parts of the body governed by each zodiac sign. The almanac also advised when the various moveable feasts would occur in the coming year and when eclipses of the sun and moon would occur.
The McLean County Museum of History has twelve different issues of the Wakefield Almanac in the Archives! According to the 1952 Pantagraph article, the almanac was printed in four languages: English, German, Swedish and Norwegian!