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) DIRECTORY of all topics (See also the SEARCH ENGINE, bottom of page.) CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could? Some MUM site links: homepage | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM 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. Menstrual products in the Montgomery Ward & Co. catalog, Fall-Winter, 1924-25 (U.S.A.) Mail order catalogs in America meant much in the last part of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth, especially to people in rural areas, who couldn't easily visit large stores for the variety they offered. Montgomery Ward offered one of the first catalogs, before Sears, Roebuck did (see two 1928 sections - menstrual belts and underwear - from the Sears catalog). The language of the ads has a humorous quality, to me, anyhow, reminiscent of the L. L. Bean catalog ad copy, especially of 20 years and more ago. Individual sections are enlarged BELOW the large top image! Six images, long download!   Special underwear protected women from leaking menstrual blood onto their clothing. Sears, Roebuck sold protective underwear through the 1960s, and some companies today sell similar things. See a fancy sanitary apron on a mannequin that the Sears, Roebuck catalog advertised in 1914 and a kit for traveling women. Look how cheap postage was! Of course, two cents bought a lot more then.   Read the ad, above left, for indications of the ways women's dress had recently changed.     Even though disposable pads had already appeared in America (Curads, by 1920; Kotex, in 1921), many women in succeeding decades still used washable pads, at left, (here are modern washable pads from Canada and the U.S.A. and from India and old Norwegian and Italian pads) because they were cheap, among other reasons. One regular Kotex sold at this time for about five cents (see an ad); the washable pad above was 21 cents, but a woman wore it many times. Women flushed the disposable pads, at right, but this undoubtedly led to stoppages. See other supposedly flushable pads.    See many more belts and how a woman wore (and wears!) a belt. See more Kotex items: First ad (1921) - ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928 Copyright Harry Finley 2006