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Early Pursettes lubricated menstrual tampon
ads
Pursettes tampons, which evolved
into tampons mainly for teenagers and
young women (see the many later ads
listed at left), started out designed
for a mixed-age audience, as the ads
below show.
Tambrands,
the former maker of Tampax tampons,
generously donated these ads to your
MUM as part of a huge gift of
archival material. Probably
someone at Tambrands wrote the
annotations, typed the sources, and
punched the holes.
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There was at least one 1930s tampon
that had built-in lubrication (Dale), and
many tampons
in the 1930s also had no
applicators. Tampax came with the
first applicator, in the early 1930s.
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(Above) Two women talk - about
tampons? - over coffee. I am given to
understand that advertising people
(men, I'm sure) called this commonly
used situation - (WARNING!
VULGARITY FOLLOWS!) - "Two c's
in a k": "Two cunts in a kitchen."
This shows contempt for women and the
customer, identical in this case.
Maybe with women more involved in the
industry (I assume) expressions like
this have disappeared.
Note the last sentence: the
Pursettes people are telling girls
they won't lose their virginity by
inserting the tampon. This issue
plagued Tampax right from the
beginning (see a famous Tampax ad),
and still inhibits many girls from
using tampons
From March 1959.
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(Above) Under "FREE
OFFER," I believe K, M or T stand for
Kotex, Modess and Tampax, the leaders
in the menstrual hygiene industry at
the time (now it's Always pads and
Tampax tampons; Procter & Gamble
owns both).
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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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