Vol. 33, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1995- "The Pennsylvania Geographer"
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE
PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
IN THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION
Yda Schreuder
Department of Geography
University of Delaware
Maryann P. Feldman
Institute for Policy Studies
Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
This paper provides an examination of the historical circumstances that gave rise to the geographic concentration of the pharmaceutical industry in the Mid-Atlantic region. We offer an interpretation of the social and institutional context that promoted the growth and development of the industry in the region. Our focus in this paper is the development of the industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in both the Philadelphia and New York City region. We present the metaphor "pharmaceutical compound" as a way to describe the industry embedded within the region and to emphasize the resources and relationships that enabled firms located here to survive, adapt to change, and ultimately to grow into world-class corporations.