May Drug Company

May Drug Co. operated a chain of drug stores throughout the Pittsburgh area. The company began in 1894 as a patent medicine counter. By the time it was acquired by the Louis K. Liggett Co. in early 1929, it was operating one of the largest drug store chains in the city, with 18 branches throughout the region and headquarters in the downtown May Building at Liberty and Fifth Avenues. Although the company challenged state regulations requiring drug stores to be owned by licensed pharmacists, it supported the emerging field through scholarships to the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy.

Barney May (1843-1921) was a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria. He came to Canada in 1858 and peddled through Quebec and Newfoundland before heading west to stake claims in the gold rush of British Columbia. Illness brought him to the United States, where he assisted family in mercantile operations in New York City and Pennsylvania.

May married the Pittsburgh-born Pauline Fleischman in 1872, in a service led by Dr. Lippman Mayer of Rodef Shalom Congregation. May relocated in Pittsburgh in the 1880s and started a dry goods business with his brother-in-law. The company amassed large debts and closed during the Panic of 1893, becoming one of the first and largest bankruptcy cases in America following the passage of new protections. May began selling patent medicines from a storefront on Market Street in downtown Pittsburgh in 1894, eventually expanding the business into a citywide chain of drug stores.