As One
Girl to Another (complete
booklet, 1940, Kotex,
U.S.A.)
now you
are 10 (complete
booklet, 1958, Kotex,
U.S.A.)
MANY MORE
booklets
menstrual hygiene companies made
for girls, women and teachers - patent
medicine - a list of
books and articles about
menstruation - videos
What did women do about menstruation
in the past?
|
Museum of Menstruation and
Women's Health
Becoming Aware
Educational Kit
Puberty
kit for girls & their
mothers (Kotex, 1992?, U.S.A.)
Box contains booklets for
mothers (Parent's Guide) &
their daughters (Sarah's Story),
and sample menstrual pads &
tampons
Explains menstruation,
adolescence, tampons, girls'
growth, menstrual pads
Puberty kits and
booklets for menarcheal
girls are nothing new;
Kotex itself came out
with booklets
in the 1920s. Not only
pad and tampon
companies produced
material, so did menstrual
belt makers and non-affiliated
persons.
The illustrations for
these two booklets, Parent's
Guide but
especially Sarah's
Story, resemble
the style of Bernie
Fuchs, who died
in 2009 after a hugely
influential career. In
his obituary in the New
York Times on 21
September, 2009, Steven
Heller wrote
In the 1960s and
'70s, Mr. Fuchs's
alluring
illustrations for
fiction and
nonfiction articles
on themes of
romance, adventure
and sports,
typically capturing
clean-cut
men and women of
the middle and
upper-middle
classes in candid
and naturalistic
poses,
established a
stylistic standard
for editorial and
advertising art of
the day. . . .
His work was so
popular that it was
routinely
mimicked by
illustrators and
students.
He was not bothered
by creative
pilfering and shared
his methods and
techniques, first as
an instructor for
the Famous Artists
School, one of the
best-known
correspondence
courses, and later
as a founder of the
Illustrators
Workshop. . . .
Later in his
career he rejected .
. . laborious work
for a more modern,
fluidly
impressionistic
style, which was infused
with light and
bordered on the
abstract.
In this way he was
distancing himself
and the field from
Norman Rockwell's
dominant realist
manner. . . .
Mr. Gangel [art
director of Sports
Illustrated] once
said, "Bernie paints
light better than
anyone in the
history of art."
[That's quite a
claim.]
ILLUSTRATION
at right:
Bernie
Fuchs's
John Kennedy
sailing.
SEE
two more
menstrual
products
booklets
showing what
looks like even stronger Fuchsian influence:
"Strictly
Feminine,"
1969 (Modess
menstrual pads
& yampons)
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No people
of color exist
in the two booklets, Parent's
Guide and Sarah's
Story, strange at
this late date.
Kotex early on pitched
its pads to women
with money, which
usually meant white
ones.
I
thank the donor!
|
Below:
The box the kit arrived
in. As my older brother
told me once,
"If
something's worth
doing it's worth
overdoing." As
little siblings often
do,
I copied my senior and
wiser litter
mate - no, that's
not the right phrase -
although
he wouldn't have had
anything to do with
menstruation. I was
on my own on that one.
I fuzzed out the name
of the recipient, the
donor's mother, who
told me she forgot to
give the kit to her
daughter!
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NEXT
| Box
holding the kit, two
booklets and sample pads and
tampons - 1st
BOOKLET: cover &
plan of PARENT'S GUIDE -
1st
inside page - middle
inside page - right
inside page - left
outside page - middle
outside page - 2d BOOKLET: SARAH'S STORY
-
PADS
& TAMPON in the kit
As One Girl
to Another (complete
booklet, 1940, Kotex,
U.S.A.) - Marjorie
May's Twelfth Birthday (almost
complete booklet,
1928, Kotex, Australia)(complete
booklet, 1935, Canada)(cover,
mid-1930s, U.S.A.)(complete
booklet, 1938, U.S.A)
MANY MORE
booklets
menstrual hygiene companies made
for girls, women and teachers - patent
medicine -
a list
of books and articles about
menstruation
Copyright 2009
Harry Finley
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