See more ads for
menarche-education booklets: Marjorie
May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1933), Tampax tampons (1970, with
Susan Dey), Personal
Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and
German o.b. tampons
(lower ad, 1970s)
And read Lynn Peril's series
about these and similar booklets!
See more Kotex items: First ad (1921) -
ad 1928 (Sears and
Roebuck catalog) - Lee
Miller ads (first real person in
amenstrual hygiene ad, 1928) - Marjorie May's Twelfth
Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928,
Australian edition; there are many links here to
Kotex items) - Preparing
for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls;
Australian edition) - 1920s booklet in Spanish
showing disposal
method - box
from about 1969 - "Are
you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See
more ads on the Ads for
Teenagers main page
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Kotex box and menstrual pad,
probably mid 1960s (U.S.A.)
Pad, below
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The blue line - blue,
again - indicated the side against the
underpants, not the vulva. (Read a discussion
of
blue in a 1927 report.)
I shortened the lower
tab, the part that looped into a belt.
The pad measures 18"
(ca. 46 cm), tab tip to tip. The
absorbing part is 8" (20.5 cm) long,
2.75" (6.6 cm) wide and 1" (2.54 cm)
thick.
The woman wore a belt with the
pad - or special panties, like these German ones
from 1960 - such as this one (below) from a
1970s Swedish
ad. The text means "usual pad"
(note the similarity with the German
word Binde, also meaning "pad," and to
the English "band," as in "bandage," a
synonym for menstrual pad, as used in
an ad for
menstrual suspenders.)
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The vulva (body) side
of the pad. The "soft impressions,"
the dimples in the pad, above, in the
text on the box (and in print
advertising) supposedly aided
absorption.
Compare the covering on
the pad, which is soft - the ends of
which hook into, or pin onto, a belt
around the woman's waist (at left,
below)- with the rough
gauze on a 1930s Kotex pad and a
Modess from
about that time. Rough material rubbed
the vulva and thighs, but so did other
material (read the Dickinson Report
from 1945 about problems with pads).
Look at the pointed end
(on the bottom), designed to fit
better between the buttocks, and the
blunt end, which had nothing to
conform to, although that end
sometimes pushed outer clothing up, to
the wearer's distress.
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See the
box. See a
Kotex pad probably from the 1930s and one
copyrighted 1974.
© 2001 Harry Finley. It is
illegal to reproduce or distribute any
of the 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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