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Tampax enjoys its fame from
having sold the first tampon
with an applicator,
patented (1926900, filed 19
November 1931, dated 12
September 1933, above) by Dr. Earle Haas
of Denver, Colorado (U.S.A.). Other
companies in the U.S.A.
sold tampons without applicators
before 1936. (See the Wix
tampon, for example, or probably
Nunap and
fax, neither of which were
patented.) Read more about this
in Tampax's
company history.
Dr. Haas
was born in 1888, graduated from
the Kansas City College of
Osteopathy in 1918 and spent 10
years in Colorado as a country
general practitioner, then went to
Denver in 1928.
He invented a flexible ring for
a contraceptive diaphragm (and
made $50,000 from selling the
patent), sold real estate and was
president of a company that
manufactured antiseptics.
Haas wanted to invent something
better than the "rags" his wife
and other women had to wear, he
said, and got the idea for his
tampon from a friend in California
who used a sponge
in the vagina to absorb menstrual
flow.
So he developed a plug of cotton
inserted by means of two cardboard
tubes; he didn't want the woman to
have to touch the cotton. (All
this information comes from the
Tambrands booklet "Small Wonder:
How Tambrands began, prospered
and grew," no date, but
published probably in the middle
1980s, I believe to celebrate
Tampax's 50th anniversary.)
After failing to get people
interested in his invention
(including the Johnson &
Johnson company, which would later
sell the contemporary
applicatorless Wix tampon), on
October 16, 1933 he finally sold
the patent and trademark to a
Denver businesswoman, Gertrude
Tenderich, for $32,000. She started the
Tampax company and was its first
president. Tenderich was
an ambitious German immigrant who
made the first Tampax tampons at
her home using a sewing machine
and Dr. Haas's compression
machine.
The London Sunday Times
newspaper in 1969 named Haas one
of the "1000 Makers of the
Twentieth Century."
After selling the rights to the
tampon, he continued with his
doctor's practice and various
business enterprises. He regretted
later selling the rights, but was
glad it was successful, and died
at 96 in 1981. Up to right before
his death he continued to try to
improve the tampon.
© 1998
Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute work on
this Web site in any manner or
medium without written
permission of the author. Please
report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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