ctpharmacists

Anna Louise James was born on January 19, 1886, in Hartford. The daughter of a Virginia plantation slave who escaped to Connecticut, she grew up in Old Saybrook. Dedicating her early life to education, Anna became, in 1908, the first African American woman to graduate from the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy in New York. She operated a […]

One of the most consequential initiatives to come out to the CPA’s annual meeting in 1920 was the establishment of a Connecticut school of pharmacy. The idea had been kicking around since at least 1879, but it was not until after World War 1 that official pharmacy classes were taught in Connecticut, first in the

Between 1879 and the end of World War 1, CPA’s legislative committee was extremely busy, first proposing a Pharmacy Act in 1879 before finally getting it passed into law in 1881. By 1908, the association had hired its first lobbyist, with one job being to interview every Senator and House member about their support for

Amazingly, though pharmacists were tested and licensed under the Pharmacy Act in 1881, there was no similar requirement for physicians! So in 1892, the CPA went to the Connecticut Medical Society to advise that there should be a law regulating the practice of medicine, and that CPA would cooperate in securing such legislation. So, essentially,

From the very start, public policy was one of primary interests of the new association and in 1876 CPA first proposed a state Pharmacy Act. It was noted at the time that, whereas in some other states legislation to control the practice of pharmacy originated with the medical profession, it was the pharmacists themselves, as

When you begin to read and review the proceedings of these early meetings, it is striking that the problems facing the profession and the Association are very closely paralleled to those which face us today. Some of the earliest conference are concerned about To combat such issues, one of the first tasks of the1876 convention was

The association’s annual meetings quickly became a major event, attracting politicians and celebrities to hobnob with the elite of Connecticut’s pharmacy community. Indeed, no less a figure than P.T. Barnum himself—the Greatest Showman—and first president of Bridgeport Hospital, was the guest of honor at the 1882 annual meeting in Bridgeport. He invited the attendees to visit

And thus it was that on January 28, 1876 a general invitation was extended to Connecticut pharmacists requesting their attendance at an organizational meeting to be held in New Haven. At this meeting, the Connecticut Pharmaceutical Association was established, with annual dues set at $2 with an initiation fee of $3. 25 druggists attended representing 8

At the time of CPA’s founding, the usual procedure by which one became a pharmacists was for an individual to go to work for a practicing pharmacist, working as an apprentice, often living in a space above the drug store. During the apprenticeship he (let’s face it, at this point it was almost always a

CPA’s story begins in 1875 on a New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad train en route from Boston to New Haven. Pharmacists John K. Williams of Hartford and Alfred Daggett of New Haven were returning home from the 23rd annual convention of the American Pharmaceutical Association. Capt Williams is pictured here; I have been