![]() ![]() Under the presidency of Owens, the company pursued retail expansion, but after his death in 1906, Minor liquidated the company's retail assets to focus on wholesaling and Willis's patent preparations. Yet the emergence from recession toward the turn of the century allowed Owens & Minor to reach record profits. The business's low margins and need to extend credit to struggling consumers made the company's balance sheet precarious. The early history of the company is one of financial difficulty, especially as the 1880s and 1890s were economically weak in Richmond, including the lengthy nationwide depression surrounding the panic of 1893. David." According to the 125th anniversary history of the company, the 1906 Food and Drug Act did not affect Owens & Minor, because Willis's products made mild health claims and did no damage. Willis also developed a line of patent products advertised under the fictitious name "Dr. Owens and Minor hired their first employee, an apothecary named Joseph Willis, to run the retail store-front at their location at 1007 East Main Street. The partners hoped to translate their traveling sales experience into a significant market share of rural and small-town pharmacists. Despite entering into a heavily competitive industry-there were five other wholesale druggists in Richmond at the time-the partnership attracted substantial financing from partners in Brown, Davis, & Co., a grocery wholesaler. Prior to beginning Owens & Minor, the two partners were rival traveling salesman for different Richmond wholesale druggists. Owens and George Gilmer Minor, II, as a pharmaceutical wholesale and retail company. was founded in 1882 in Richmond, Virginia, by Otho O. The Owens & Minor collection is arranged into six series by document type and subject, and they are further subdivided where necessary. The collection also contains historical materials and some corporate documents dating from the founding of the company in 1882 to the publication of their 125th anniversary history in 2009, as well as personnel materials, and documents related to three of their Richmond corporate buildings from 1946-1991. The bulk of the collection consists of contracts and materials related to these sales and acquisitions, and corporate documents of the acquired subsidiaries themselves. In less than forty years, Owens & Minor grew from a regional company with revenue of $5 million to a national corporation with revenue over $1 billion, over the same period transitioning from being a drug wholesaler to operating as a hospital supplier and third-party logistics firm. During this period, the company made many acquisitions and sales, beginning with the purchase of rival Richmond drug wholesaler Bodeker Drug Company and ending with the sale of its entire wholesale drug division to Bergen Brunswig. ![]() ![]() The collection is primarily concerned with the company's period of growth and strategic transition under the direction of G. Title: Owens & Minor, In.c, Records, 1882-2009Ībstract: Historical materials and corporate documents dating from the founding of the company in 1882 to the publication of their 125th anniversary history in 2009, as well as personnel materials, documents related to three of their Richmond corporate buildings from 1946-1991, and materials relating to the acquisition of subsidiaries. Gift of Owens & Minor, Inc., Richmond, Virginia, 20 June 2006 (Acq. Owens & Minor, Inc., Records, 1882-2009 (Mss3 Ow27 a FA2), Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Va. Processed under the auspices of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) A Guide to the Owens & Minor, Inc., Records, 1882-2009Ĭ 2014 By Virginia Historical Society. ![]()
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