(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).
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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.
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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.)
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"[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:
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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.
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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.
© 2000, 2015 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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