See a prototype of the first Kotex ad.
See more Kotex items: Ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many links here to Kotex items) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal method - box from about 1969 - Preparing for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls) - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
Ads for the Kotex stick tampon (U.S.A., 1970s) - a Japanese stick tampon from the 1970s.
Early commercial tampons - Rely tampon - Meds tampon (Modess)
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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homepageMUM address & What does MUM mean? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! | the 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, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | 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
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

Kotex sanitary napkin ad, U.S.A., July 1942

Kotex, like Tampax tampons and many other menstrual products companies, played up any medical connection they could find to bolster the image of their product. In a perfect stroke, nurses wrote from France during World War I claiming they used Kimberly-Clark's bandages for sanitary napkins because they were so absorbent and cheap enough to throw away, unlike the typical cloth sanitary napkin - rag - that women mostly used. Actually, Curads, known for its bandages today, made a disposal pad (see an ad) in the years before and during Kotex's debut. And the German company Hartmann made a disposable menstrual pad in the late 19th century (ad here).

Kotex celebrated its past in this ad but owned up to the uncomfortable pads it made, which were huge (see another uncomfortable-looking pad from that era. No wonder tampons became so popular - see a very early Tampax - partly because of the Dickinson report of 1945.).

And, of course, the ad makes the connection between Kotex's birth in World War I to the was then being fought, World War II. Look at the woman military person on the motorcycle, who might have been sitting on a Kotex pad at that very moment - and she's smiling.

(See the old Kotex ad pictured enlarged here, made from the image below.)

See a prototype of the first Kotex ad.

© 2006 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