Rawleigh was very cognizant of the variety of salesmen who stopped at his home selling farm medicines, inspiring him to the overall potential that this type of operation provided.

The combination of his incredible imagination, coupled with his natural organizational skills, pushed him to persuade his father to let him work for a neighbor as a farmhand for $20 a month in order to make money so he could get started selling farm medicines.

His father still objected to the idea of selling door-to-door, but by spring finally gave permission, though he refused to provide Rawleigh with money for freight and other starting expenses.

[6] Inspired by the selling methods of the J.R. Watkins Medical Company, Rawleigh packed his clothes and departed to Stephenson County, Illinois.

Initially he turned his mother's kitchen into a part-time factory in order to produce liniment, until he could get enough money together to rent a small building.

It's clear that he had found a ready market for the products he was offering and, in his travels, he also heard from the wives of farmers about what else they would like him to bring the next time he called.

Beyond the previously listed items, the company also sold sewing machine oil, cough syrup, mustard, chewing gum hog mixture and even farm machinery (hit-and-miss engines) as well as cosmetics.

This booklet was to be the forerunner of the famous Rawleigh Good Health Guide, Almanac and Cookbook, a book that continued to be published until 1960, nine years after his death.

In a laboratory in that building, Mr. J.R. Jackson, his brother-in-law, under Rawleigh's supervision, made careful tests and established new standards of strength and uniformity.

He also established warehouses in Zanzibar, Madagascar and Sumatra, where raw materials such as vanilla, cloves, pepper, ylang-ylang and oil of geranium were assembled before being shipped to his factories.

[10] Rawleigh's business was involved in the total supply chain from sourcing raw materials to distribution of manufactured products.

Not only did he build his business from the ground up, but he was involved in community service as well as becoming the acting mayor from 1909 to 1911 and later served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1911 and 1912.

Particular Asian items in the collection include a 19th-century palace screen and a set of Hindu hand painted temple banners, known as kalamkari, from India.