Cellucotton, early newspaper reports and later Kotex ads
Kotex box and pad, 1930s - ads, 1930 & 1931 - Phantom Kotex ad, with ad for Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, a menarche booklet, 1932 - Kotex doesn't show! 3 ads for Kotex menstrual pads, 1927, 1932, 1955 (U.S.A.) - Kotex doesn't show! #2: June 1932 - ad, 1932, for Kotex and Kleenex - Phantom Kotex, July, 1932 - picture in ad of Mary Pauline Callender, author of the Marjorie May booklets (more biographical info) - 1932, Phantom Kotex - leaflet ad for Wondersoft pads, belt, Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, 1933 - 1933, Phantom Kotex - box and pads, 1930s? - wrapped Kotex pad for West Disinfecting Company dispenser (mid 1930s)
Many more PADS
First Kotex magazine ad? January 1921 - the first Kotex ad campaign (1921) - a prototype ("To Save Men's Lives Science Discovered Kotex,") for the first ad, about 1920 - first newspaper ad? (1920) and early newspaper ads
The very early Kotex tampons Moderne Woman, fax, Nunap, & Fibs, all 1930s. Kotex second stick tampons (U.S.A.) & its ads, 1960s to 1970s - Kotams mesh-string tampon with 2-tube insertion device (1944?) - also called Kotams: first Kotex stick tampon, 1960-65 - Comfortube tampons (1967), box, tampons


See also Ads for Teens

Booklets menstrual hygiene companies made for girls, women and teachers - patent medicine - a list of books and articles about menstruation - videos
Ads for teenagers
Many more PADS, BOOKLETS - See TAMPONS, MENSTRUAL BELTS, CUPS, SPONGES, UNDERPANTS
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 (and awesome ancient art of menstruation) |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Birth control and religion |
Birth control drugs, old |
Birth control douche & sponges |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Contraceptive drugs, old |
Contraceptive douche & sponges |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory |
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, towel, napkin 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 |
Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory |
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) |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory |
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.

Ad for Kotex pads, belts, & Marjorie May puberty education bookle in a never-used 1930s sewing pattern for womens sports trousers.

The donor wrote:

Hi there!

A friend passed on your site you me, and I thought you might like these scans for your site. I found this inside a never used sewing pattern for 1930s womens sports trousers. I thought it was a pretty clever marketing scheme.

Best wishes,

****

Publications for women were the ideal place for companies to place ads for menstrual gear. Women traditionally sewed at home and could easily find - and privately - information about menstruation pads and other products directed to her nether regions.

Nether regions and knitting also formed the launching, um, pad for vibrators - you know, the rocket-shaped instruments women use(d) to pleasure themselves (a term of art).

To the astonishment of Natalie Angier and 99.9 percent (just my guess) of her readers in the New York Times (me too), a researcher found strange ads in old knitting magazines for those rocket-shaped things. Rachel Maines investigated and wrote a riveting book about a centuries-old practice bravely published by my alma mater, Johns Hopkins.

This ad somewhat resembles another ad of the time.

I thank the donor for scanning the ads and sending the scans to MUM!


Below: Ad 1 (enlarged) lies below this small image.
I bisected the enlarged ads, drained these black-and-white ads of their background yellow and put them below.
Below: Ad 2 (enlarged) you'll find on the next page.
   

Below: Left side of Ad 1. The scan donor did not say how big it was
or where it was on the sewing pattern.
See a Quest can & more ads for it.
What's a POSITIVE deodorant?
Below: About this time Tampax also made tampons in different sizes and, fascinatingly, used the same words.
You would scream if you had to dispose of pads this way. Kotex helpfully showed you how in a booklet.
Below: Below: Right side of Ad 1.
Kotex faced huge competition from other brands since the 1920s, especially from Modess (see a later Consumer Reports from 1949), which seems to have encouraged it to explain its pads in detail.
More about Cellucotton.
Below: Read more about the interesting life and Kotex connection of Irishwoman Mary Pauline Callender, who wrote the Marjorie May booklets for girls.

Next | Ad #2
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet, 1938, U.S.A.) - Kotex box and pad, 1930s - ads, 1930 & 1931 - Phantom Kotex ad, with ad for Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, a menarche booklet, 1932 - Kotex doesn't show! 3 ads for Kotex menstrual pads - Many more PADS - the very early Kotex tampons Moderne Woman, fax, Nunap, & Fibs, all 1930s.
Many more
BOOKLETS - See TAMPONS, MENSTRUAL BELTS, PADS, CUPS, SPONGES, UNDERPANTS

© 2010 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