How to sell Kotex,
a page for trade
publications, probably early 1920s,
U.S.A., and "Your
Image is Your Fortune!," Modess sales-hints
booklet for stores, 1967 (U.S.A.).
Selling Playtex tampons to retailers,
1970s.
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
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The Museum of Menstruation and
Women's Health
Large
display map possibly designed to
show at a dealers' gathering,
U.S.A., Kotex, 1923
"it's
KOTEX now to women everywhere"
Advertising men Wallace Meyer
and Albert Lasker rocketed Kotex
into menstrual stardom right at
the beginning of the Roaring
Twenties in America. Soon women
almost everywhere replaced their
washable rags with this first heavily
advertised pad - and disposable.
The jazz era needed the increase
in freedom it provided.
This map shows Kotex's early
progress. And reminds me
of the Sherwin-Williams globe.
See also How to sell
Kotex, a page for trade
publications, probably early
1920s, U.S.A., and "Your Image is
Your Fortune!," Modess
sales-hints booklet for stores
similar to the one below, 1967
(U.S.A.).
The map page below consists
of scans of 2 photocopies (not a
photo) I ordered and bought from
the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin of its original
document and then scanned in
parts and spliced together, thus
some poor reproduction.
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Below:
The 2 black-and-white
photocopies (not photos)
ordered from the State
Historical Society of
Wisconsin around 1994
make an entity
measuring about 16 3/8 x
21 3/8" (ca. 41.6 x 54.3
cm), probably close to
the size of the
original. I'm
guessing that the
original
document is
black and white.
What you see below
is a composite
of scans of the
2 sheets spliced
together horizontally
through the middle with
smaller corrective
scans dropped in where
necessary. Apparently
the Society's scanner
was not large enough to
make a single copy and
mine certainly was/is
not.
I slightly trimmed
this scan at the
margins, damaged in the
original.
By
the way, every
object and ad on
this site larger
than 8.5 x 11 inches
is a
stitched-together
composite of 2 or
more scans because
of my small scanner.
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Curiosities
on the map:
Why did the
company pick
the cities shown on
the map and not
others?
Pinehurst:
Obscured on the map,
below, but not on the
original. A village
(2010 pop. 13,124) in
North Carolina, known for
golf courses since
1898.
Why would Kotex denote
this? Did
the company managers,
probably male,
play there? Golf
courses have not been
traditionally kind to
women and
therefore not to Kotex.
Maybe golfers
brought their wives,
who could afford
Kotex.
Tia
Juana
(California): "Aunt Jane"
in Spanish, Tia Juana is a
former
name for Tijuana. Wiki
says the common theory
among historians is that
it derives "from
the Kumeyaay word Tiwan,
meaning by-the-sea"
and does not mean Aunt
Jane.
Banff
(Alberta, Canada): A
tourist destination in
1923 and today
although
a small town (pop.
8,421 in 2014). Again,
maybe many visitors -
travelers -
were women and needed
Kotex.
And tourists had money
for Kotex.
And
a giant
curiosity: According
to Google maps, the
addresses for
probably
the world's first
commercial tampons -
Moderne
Woman, Nunap
and
fax -
all lie today within
a 9-15 minutes
driving distance of
each other and of
the address
on this ad (at
bottom), as was at
least one
other Chicago
Kotex pad address in
1922. The tampon
company names on the
boxes are not
Cellucotton Products
Company,
Kimberly-Clark or
Kotex.
All are within a
tight radius in
Chicago.
Who - or what - was
behind these early
tampons?
Undoubtedly
innovator
Kimberly-Clark.
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Below:
The central text. More about
the beginnings
of Kotex, the
Kotex name, embarrassment,
birdseye,
cellucotton,
and disposing
of Kotex.
I've heard many people today say
Kotex for any menstrual pad, the way
people say Scotch tape for any
cellophane tape. It had started
already in 1923 because Kotex
was the first heavily marketed
menstrual pad - and disposable.
But there were earlier
commercial pads.
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Below:
Are you
yawning? To wake you
from your catmatic
dogmatic slumber
(as Immanuel Kant said of David
Hume; I'm allowed to say that having
been a philosophy major),
compare the two powder puffs
below. The Kotex puff reminded
me of Beardsley's.
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Below:
This drawing is part
of Aubrey Beardsley's
illustration called "The
Toilette
of Lampito"
from "The Lysistrata
of Aristophanes,"
London, 1896. Lampito
(that's her
behind) worked with
Lysistrata to stop
Athens's war with
Sparta in 5th century
B.C. Greece by
convincing women
to stop having sex
with men.
It didn't work.
Brian Reade -
I'm quoting from the
German edition of his
book "Beardsley,"
1967, where the
illustration appears -
says that Beardsley
possesses "der souveränen
Linienführung, in der
europäischen
Kunstgeschichte ohne
Beispiel" - he
is the unequaled
master of line in
European art
history.
I think he is
England's greatest
artist.
And tuberculosis
killed him at 25.
Note the upraised
pinkie.
See a more direct
Beardsley-menstruation
connection with
a better example of
his line.
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Below, the arrow
points to the similar
powder puff in the
Kotex sheet at top. I
guess powder puffs are
powder puffs.
Both are for
cheeks.
These drawings
and the Beardsley are
examples of the masterful
black-and-white
drawings of the late
19th and early 20th
centuries.
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