(Johnson & Johnson) Modess ads: "Silent Purchase," June 1928; another from 1928, 1931,"Modess . . . . because" ads, the French Modess, and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark) for teens.
See other marketing devices: Ad-design contest for menstrual products in the United Kingdom; B-ettes tampon counter-display box and proposal to dealers, with contract; (U.S.A., donated by Procter & Gamble, 2001); "Your Image is Your Fortune!," Modess sales-hints booklet for stores, 1967 (U.S.A., donated by Tambrands, 1997)
See a Modess True or False? ad in The American Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
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? | 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.

 
The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

Ad for Nupak menstrual pads
April 1927, U.S.A., Johnson & Johnson

"So infinitely sadder."

No, this ad doesn't say that - other contemporary Johnson & Johnson menstrual pad ads, like this one for Modess,  say finer instead of sadder in that phrase lacking here - but look at the poor anorectic woman's face. And read about a "mysterious empathy" in the comments right below the ad.

Well, poor is also the wrong word. Wealth clings to her runway-model figure, a chill hardens those distant eyes.  (Modess later had a decades-long ad campaign consisting of richly dressed women. Then the brand flopped.)

Only the woman's dog is poor, missing two hind legs.

The ad connects comfort in stylish dress to comfort in wearing a Nupak pad. Many women found, and find, pads bothersome. To clinch the association, the ad calls Nupak an "accessory," which in fashion circles can mean gloves, etc. The lowly pad, lowly also in the physical-space sense, thus gains status, as does the wearer. Or so the company undoubtedly hoped.

"Daintiness" and "dainty" appear in the text; see the enlargement, below. Read more about these words.

Read Dr. Lillian Gilbreth's evaluation of Nupak, in 1927, made at the request of its manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, and compare a similar Nupak ad.

 

Left: Look how Katie Holmes's eyelids droop at the outside corners.
Left, below: Part of the famous first cover of The Great Gatsby, 1925.
Below: The lines of the hat make the corners of the eyelids of the Nupak woman appear to be lower than they are. To me, all these eyes look sad.

Pulitzer Prize winner Siddhartha Mukherjee mentions this "slight downward tilt of the outer edge of the eye, something that Italian painters used to make Madonnas exude a mysterious empathy." (P. 24, The New Yorker, May 2, 2016, emphasis added.)

"[B]y Jane Bradford Potter" is the third line of the ad. Is she a real woman? A named person's writing ad text for menstrual products or giving advice had probably started just shortly before this time, possibly in 1921 with Mrs. Barton's pitching Fems pads. The German Camelia pads produced a booklet around this time listing a Nurse Thekla Buckeley as the author.  (Suspiciously, Nurse Ellen Buckland takes customers' orders in an American Kotex ad from the 20s.) Mary Pauline Callender takes credit for the Kotex Marjorie May booklets. Mrs. Barton wrote a booklet, by the way, called Personal Daintiness, which leads to the following:

Above, read two instances of "dainty" and one of "daintiness," "exquisite," no less.

I had never heard the word"immaculacy" until I read it here. And within an hour I read it again.

About the same time as Vemo, Kotex sold a powder for pads called Amolin.

The sound of "Gripad" (for the belt above) breaks the spell of daintiness. Commercial belts had been sold decades before the twenties, homemade ones existed maybe forever.

Dr. Lillian Gilbreth found in a 1927 survey for Johnson & Johnson that women preferred to pin their pad to a belt rather than use another form of attachment; it was more secure. But maybe Gripad worked. A later commercial panty (bottom picture, hanging mannequin) had a similar gripping material in its crotch). 

Note the use of "affair," which strikes me as hoity-toity thirties talk, elevating the level of the ad - and of the subject, menstruation. It reinforces the standoffishness of the ad and the distance in the dog-walker's eyes.


For more daintiness, see a Kotex ad from 1932. (Johnson & Johnson) Modess ads:
"Silent Purchase," June 1928; another from 1928, 1931,"Modess . . . . because" ads, the French Modess,
and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark) for teens.

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