Read most of a 1928 Australian edition of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday. Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (1935) - Facts About Menstruation that every Woman should know (1936) - Marjorie May, introductory page, 1935 main page
Read Lynn Peril's series about these and similar booklets! And see the covers of the booklets How shall I tell my daughter?, Growing up and liking it, and Personal Digest; read the whole booklet As One Girl to Another (Kotex, 1940).
Marjorie May, three booklets, 1935 main page
See a Kotex ad advertising this booklet.
HOMEPAGE
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
HOMEPAGE |
MUM address & What does MUM mean? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
Art of menstruation |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation and menopause (and reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Founder/director biography |
Gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux |
Humor |
Huts |
Links |
Masturbation |
Media coverage of MUM |
Menarche booklets for girls and parents |
Miscellaneous |
Museum future |
Norwegian menstruation exhibit |
Odor |
Olor |
Pad directory |
Patent medicine |
Poetry directory |
Products, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents|
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
Shame |
Slapping, menstrual |
Sponges |
Synchrony |
Tampon directory |
Early tampons |
Teen ads directory |
Tour of the former museum (video) |
Underpants & panties directory |
Videos, films directory |
Words and expressions about menstruation |
Would you stop menstruating if you could? |
What did women do about menstruation in the past? |
Washable pads |
Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

 

As one Girl to Another ("one" is not capitalized in the booklet's title)
1943, "new edition"
Puberty & menstruation booklet from
International Cellucotton Products Co. (Kotex), 1943, U.S.A.

Discussion.

See the similar 1940 edition, maybe the first of this booklet. Because its calendar shows the last half of 1940 through all of 1941 and this one covers 1944 to the first half of 1945 there must have been some in between.

A famous Kotex booklet before this one.

See an ad offering this free booklet. And see a tin of Quest powder (and an ad for it). Kotex, on page 10, recommended sprinkling the powder on pads to stop the odor. (Read what causes the odor of menstruation.) The booklet mentions Fibs tampon, the Kotex tampon, developed in the 1930s, on page 16. Fibs had no applicator, unlike its main competitor, the two-tube Tampax (read and see the first Tampax?).

Below: Back of the introductory page.
Below P. 1. Pigtails shout "Young girl!" So do lollipops and skates. At least in the faraway 40s.  It's an interesting device to replace the lollipop with lipstick, significant in white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture - WASP culture.                                   

Below: See a list of words meaning menstruation and everything associated with it in many countries and languages.
Below: Before the Web, people actually opened certain kinds of "books" to see what a word meant and to check out its history. Companies grouped "pages" made of paper with letters and pictures "printed" on them and made them all stay together - they formed a "book"! A piece of paper made a "page." "Webster" means the girl is looking in the book of word meanings originally created by Daniel Webster in the 19th century but updated and changed many times since then. But here it might refer humorously to any "dictionary" - the Kotex jokesters liked snappy writing and pictures.  It was a "dictionary" the page below calls "big, fat." Questions?

At the bottom the writer refers to the often cumbersome and for most women probably unpleasant job of washing the rags most used used for absorbing menstrual discharge - although Kotex did not invent the disposable pad.

Many probably bled into their clothing.

Next page
Go to covers & preface | pages 1-3 ("lollipops to lipsticks,""You're YOURSELF!," definition), | 4-7  (duration, cramps, use a calendar and "don't get caught unprepared") | 8-11 ("warning signals,"Kotex will never give your secret away,""daintiness," cleanliness, sports) | 12-15 ("But don't miss the fun!," "boys know all about menstruation," do's and don't's chart) | 16-19 (tampons, use Kotex, cramps exercises,  inside back cover Kotex calendar 1944-45)

A famous Kotex booklet before this one.

A famous Kotex booklet before this one.


copyright 2007 Harry Finley