See an ad for this booklet.
Read a Personal Products booklet for older
girls from about this time, The Periodic Cycle
(1938). See similar
booklets on this site.
Booklets menstrual
hygiene companies made for girls, women and
teachers - patent
medicine - a list
of books and articles about menstruation - videos
See a Kotex ad
advertising a Marjorie May booklet.
See many more similar booklets.
See ads for
menarche-education booklets: Marjorie May's Twelfth
Birthday (Kotex, 1932), Tampax
tampons (1970, with Susan Dey), Personal Products
(1955, with Carol Lynley), and German o.b. tampons (lower
ad, 1981)
And read Lynn Peril's series
about these and similar booklets!
Read the full text of the 1935 Canadian edition
of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, probably
identical to the American edition.
More ads for teens (see also introductory page for
teenage advertising): Are
you in the know?
(Kotex napkins and Quest napkin powder, 1948,
U.S.A.), Are
you in the know?
(Kotex napkins and belts, 1949, U.S.A.)Are you in the know? (Kotex napkins, 1953, U.S.A.),
Are you in the know? (Kotex napkins and belts,
1964, U.S.A.), Freedom
(1990, Germany), Kotex (1992, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Saba (1975, Denmark)
See early tampons
and a list of tampon
on this site - at least the ones I've cataloged.
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"Die Menstruation"
excerpts from the o.b.
tampon, menstruation &
puberty booklet for girls,
1977, Germany
No other menarche booklet
that I know of features such
bold and "artsy" photographs
as this one from the company
that sold the o.b. tampon
before the American Johnson
& Johnson bought the
brand in the 1970s. The
reportedly highest paid
photographer in the world at
the time, the Englishman
David Hamilton, took many
and perhaps all of the
photographs, one of which I
include and which you can
see here
(I've omitted some of the
explicit pictures). He was
(and is) famous for his
photographs of girls but
here he includes a boy to
illustrate the section on
anatomy.
Like most menarche
booklets the text can be
poetic in places, matching
some of the romantic
Hamilton photos. And like
all of them the booklet
pitches the company's
products, here, tampons with
no applicators.
This booklet could not
have appeared in the 1930s
and maybe not even the 40s
or 50s because it encouraged
young girls - meaning
virgins - to use tampons,
which the Catholic Church
and other groups early
opposed. Tampax faced these
problems in the 1930s and
later (see the Tampax ad "Are
you sure I'll still be a
virgin?").
I
first saw this booklet in
the window of an Apotheke
(pharmacy) in Heidelberg
in the 1970s, not to see
it again until decades
later when a contributor
in Europe generously sent
me scans of it.
See
an ad for this
booklet. And see a later Dutch
booklet that is
about as explicit but
using drawings.
A Dutchman kindly sent
these scans.
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Above,
cover: The title
translates as
"Menstruation.
"A theme out of which many
others issue"
Upper
right, inside front cover:
At top: "This
little booklet belongs
to:"
The last line indicates the
fourth edition and the
number of copies printed - a
lot, 7-8 million.
Right,
page1:
"The Themes:
"The girl.
"The boy.
"The sexual organs and their
function.
"The physical, mental and
spiritual development.
"menstruation.
"Menstrual hygiene."
I somehow chopped off the
bottom of the cover but no
text was lost.
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© 1999 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
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