See more Kotex items: First ad
(1921; scroll to bottom of page) - ad, 1928
(Sears and Roebuck
catalog) - Lee
Miller ads (first real person in a
menstrual 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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The Museum of Menstruation and
Women's Health
"Peace-of-Mind
Under Woman's Most Trying Hygienic
Handicap"
Kotex ad, May, 1927
Delineator magazine, U.S.A.
Do you think the lounge-abouters
below were bored out of their
minds?
Listen to (OK, read)
Elizabeth Kolbert about John Maynard
Keynes:
The
example offered by the idle
rich was, he
[Keynes] observed, "very
depressing"; most of them
had "failed disastrously" to
find satisfying pastimes.
In particular, he pointed to the "wives
of the well-to-do classes"
in the United States and England,
who,
"deprived by their wealth"
of traditional occupations, like
cooking, were
"quite
unable to find anything more
amusing" to do.
[From "No Time," in The New
Yorker, 26 May 2014. The great
economist wrote those words in Economic
Possibilities in 1931, after
the slow-moving orgy below
and well into the Great
Depression. I reddened the words
and emboldened and italicized.]
Feel for these ladies!
Society barred them from many
occupations and kinds of education.
What to do but drink and work a
Kotex ad or two.
Kotex made at least one similar
"handicap" ad, which took place in a
doctor's
office - a woman doctor's! -
but putting it in Milady's
museum-quality sitting room (below)
- well, what drama!
The statuesque woman reflects the
real statue at right - and she wears
red,
that often-avoided color in
menstrual advertising.
Do you think she's worried about where to toss her
pad, the main concern of
the writer, Ellen
Buckland? A little before this
time Dr. Lillian Gilbreth discussed
college
students' techniques for
getting rid of pads, including
stuffing it into their purses or
stopping up their hosts' toilets
with it. No, not intentionally.
Flushable pads - allegedly
flushable - have appeared now
and then.
Below, from the main ad at bottom:
Rather than hiding it
in the cabinet, will
she throw the pad into the bathtub
or sink? The
next year Kotex recommended chopping the pad up and
flushing it down the toilet.
But the era
of washing cloth pads was not
quite over.
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Below:
The full page ad measures 11 x 14"
(27.9 x 35.6 cm).
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Below:
A vibrant pinky accompanies an
extended middle finger - aimed
at you, 99
percenter?
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Below:
The pinky in action.
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Below:
How to join the upper class:
While instructing a servant,
raise an eyebrow, and
wiggle your fingers like an
squid.
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See
more talking
pinkies among the
0.1 percent.
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Above:
The woman's profile matched
the lusted-for class face
called The
Face.
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Right:
Can you read the
artist's signature?
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See more Kotex items: First ad
(1921; scroll to bottom of page) - ad, 1928
(Sears and Roebuck
catalog) -
Lee Miller ads
(first real person in a menstrual hygiene
ad, 1928)
© 2014 Harry Finley.
It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
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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