Cellucotton, early newspaper reports
and later Kotex ads
Kotex box and pad, 1930s
- ads, 1930
& 1931 - Phantom Kotex ad, with ad for
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, a menarche
booklet, 1932 - Kotex
doesn't show! 3 ads for Kotex
menstrual pads, 1927, 1932, 1955 (U.S.A.) -
Kotex doesn't show! #2: June 1932 - ad,
1932, for Kotex and
Kleenex - Phantom Kotex, July, 1932 -
picture in ad of Mary
Pauline Callender, author of the
Marjorie May booklets (more
biographical info) - 1932, Phantom Kotex - leaflet ad for
Wondersoft pads, belt, Marjorie May's
Twelfth Birthday, 1933 - 1933, Phantom Kotex - box and pads, 1930s?
- wrapped Kotex pad
for West Disinfecting Company dispenser (mid
1930s)
Many more PADS
First Kotex
magazine ad? January 1921 - the first Kotex ad campaign
(1921) - a prototype
("To Save Men's Lives
Science Discovered Kotex,") for the
first ad, about 1920 - first newspaper ad? (1920) and early
newspaper ads
The very early
Kotex tampons Moderne
Woman, fax, Nunap, & Fibs, all 1930s. Kotex second stick tampons
(U.S.A.) & its ads,
1960s to 1970s - Kotams mesh-string tampon
with 2-tube insertion device (1944?) - also
called Kotams:
first Kotex stick tampon, 1960-65 - Comfortube tampons
(1967), box, tampons
See also Ads for
Teens
Booklets
menstrual hygiene companies made for girls,
women and teachers - patent
medicine - a list
of books and articles about menstruation - videos
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Ad for
Kotex pads, belts, &
Marjorie May puberty education
bookle in a never-used
1930s sewing pattern for womens
sports trousers.
The donor wrote:
Hi there!
A friend passed on your site
you me, and I thought you might
like these scans for your site.
I found this inside a never used
sewing pattern for 1930s womens
sports trousers. I thought it
was a pretty clever marketing
scheme.
Best wishes,
****
Publications for women were the
ideal place
for companies to place ads for
menstrual gear. Women
traditionally sewed at home and
could easily find - and privately
- information about menstruation
pads and other products directed
to her nether regions.
Nether
regions and knitting also
formed the launching, um, pad for
vibrators
- you know, the rocket-shaped
instruments women use(d) to
pleasure themselves (a term of
art).
To the astonishment of Natalie
Angier and 99.9 percent (just my
guess) of her readers in the New
York Times (me too), a researcher
found strange ads in old knitting
magazines for those rocket-shaped
things. Rachel Maines investigated
and wrote a riveting
book about a centuries-old
practice bravely published
by my alma mater, Johns Hopkins.
This ad somewhat resembles another ad
of the time.
I thank the donor for
scanning the ads and sending the
scans to MUM!
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Below:
Ad 1 (enlarged) lies below
this small image.
I bisected the enlarged ads,
drained these black-and-white ads
of their background yellow and put
them below.
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Below:
Ad 2 (enlarged) you'll find on the
next page.
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Below:
Left side of Ad 1. The
scan donor did not say
how big it was
or where it was on the
sewing pattern.
See
a Quest
can &
more ads for it.
What's a POSITIVE
deodorant?
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Below:
About this time Tampax
also made tampons in
different sizes and,
fascinatingly, used
the
same words.
You would scream
if you had to dispose of
pads this way. Kotex
helpfully showed you how
in a booklet.
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Below:
Below:
Right side of Ad 1.
Kotex faced huge
competition from other
brands since the 1920s,
especially from Modess
(see a later Consumer
Reports from
1949), which seems to
have encouraged it to
explain its pads in
detail.
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Below:
Read more about the interesting
life and Kotex
connection of Irishwoman
Mary Pauline Callender,
who wrote the Marjorie
May booklets for
girls.
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© 2010 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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