Read Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday Booklet,
Canada, 1932,
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Tampax Satin Learner's Kit (for menstruation), 2001, in
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Companies (and other organizations) making menstrual products sometimes produced, and produce, literature for women and girls - and boys, for sex education - to explain menstruation, menarche, "the facts of life," and company products.As far as I know the first booklets appeared in the 1920s, at least in America (read an early Kotex booklet). Professor Joan Brumberg, of Cornell University, has written about how the teaching of the facts of menstruation passed from the family in the early 19th century to the schools and then to the companies, which sent its information to the schools. And girls who start with the product supplied by a company in school seldom change their brand. So it's an important step for companies to interest the schools in their teaching material.In the U.S.A., schools started using kits containing booklets, pads and then tampons from companies probably in the 1940s, and more recently accompanied by videos. Because of people's concerns about girls losing their virginity and for other reasons, which the booklet here talks about (and dismisses), certain groups of customers often shunned tampons - Catholics, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, and Hispanics and Asians. Read a 1940s report about these concerns (and others) and see a Tampax ad about virginity and tampons. And see a very early Tampax tampon.An interesting difference between this kit and pre-1980 kits is the booklet's explanation of toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a disease associated with tampons since the 1980s although it also occurs in many places outside the vagina. But read even earlier concerns about tampons and disease (in the form of Rely tampons) in these newspaper articles from 1975-76. |
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The coupon, on glossy paper, measures 4.87 x 2.5" (about 12.5 x 6.4 cm). |
Instruction booklet: covers & 1-2 3-6 7-10 11-14 15-18 19-22 23-26 français 27-30 31-34 35-38 39-42 43-46 47-50
español 51-54 55-58 59-62 63-66 67-70 | Alldays pantiliners | Tampax tampons | Coupon | Box 1 2 -
Read Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday Booklet, Canada, 1932, and see a Teacher's kit (complete, early 1950s, U.S.A.)