Johnson &
Johnson company history
(excerpts): A
Company That Cares (1927)
Gilbreth report to Johnson &
Johnson about Modess - Modess newspaper
ads 1927-28
- "Silent
Purchase" ad, June 1928 - ad, 1928
- "Modernizing Mother" ads: #1, February
1929 ("Mother
. . . don't be quaint");
Modess "Teacher's
kit" (complete,
early 1950s, Personal Products Corp.,
U.S.A.)
Modess
pamphlet introducing its Meds tampons
to the world (1930s)
More booklets and
kits.
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MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S
HEALTH
Cartoon ad
Modess, September 1934, Johnson
& Johnson company
McCall's magazine (U.S.A.)
Can these
ladies be bought??
They chatter the following
year about Kotex,
Modess's competitor, apparently without shame
for the betrayal!
And with no inhibition about
discussing menstruation itself,
something museum
visitors told me repeatedly they
avoided.
But the dialogue reflects what
admen called 2 C's in a K and
maybe still do: 2 cunts
in a kitchen. Crude but it was
man's world.
So, OK, there are
differences between the faces in
the two ads but they have the WASPish cast so favored then.
As I said
about another
cartoon ad,
there's no hint of blacks or
Latinos or fat or ugly people
although blacks might be servants.
But this was typical throughout
American publications - of course
not ones for African-Americans
although those women usually had Caucasian-flavored looks.
Blacks themselves often preferred
those along with lighter skin,
common today. So I read, even in
Africa.
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Below:
Excluding the headline, this photocopy
of the
black-and-white ad measures about 4 x
10.5" (10.2 x 26.7 cm)
and fills half the page.
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American theaters - er,
theatres - sometimes called
themselves the Bijou, jewel
in French, implying cultural
elevation. Sue's menstrual pad
irritates her so they settle on what
might be the lower-class vaudeville
house behind them. The plays and
movies (and 1861 novel) named East
Lynne excited women with their
stories of a rich man's bored wife;
Cimarron beat it for the 1931
Outstanding Production (i.e., best
picture) Academy Award.
Chafing has undoubtedly
bothered women for millennia; Dr.
Lillian Gilbreth talks about it in her
famous
report. Pads were huge
at the time of this ad.
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
reports that Modess-maker Johnson
& Johnson registered the trademark
Zobec for a surgical dressing
in 1927 and had used it in commerce
since the previous year. This company
and similar ones often produced both
menstrual pads and bandages, most
famously Kimberly-Clark's Kotex.
When I started researching menstrual
products in that office in the early
1990s the paper copies of both kinds
of things were boxed in the same
area of the room and maybe still
are.
Traveling and vacations were tough
for menstruating women in the years
before the first
commercial tampons. In an
earlier era of mostly washable pads, how would a woman wash and dry
her reusable napkin?
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"Teacher's kit"
(complete,
early 1950s, Personal Products Corp.,
U.S.A.)
Modess
pamphlet introducing its Meds tampons
to the world (1930s)
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