Early 20th-century Japanese ads from publications
- open-crotch drawers, 1890s (U.S.A., from MUM
collection) - Modess "Sanitary Shield"
(two-band pad holder in crotch; 1970s; U.S.A.) - SheShells
bikini (snap open at sides; no special crotch; possibly for menstrual pads
or tampons, 1970s, U.S.A.)
See Kotex ad with a man and no woman from
the Netherlands
Compare the American "Modess, because . .
." ads, a French Modess ad, a French
ad featuring just a man!, and
ads for teens.
See Kotex items: First ad (1921)
- ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Lee Miller ads (first real person in amenstrual
hygiene ad, 1928) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday
(booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many links here
to Kotex items) - Preparing for Womanhood (1920s,
booklet for girls; Australian edition) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing
disposal method - box
from about 1969 - "Are you in the know?"
ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) -
See more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
 
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Menstrual napkin belts and pads from the 1902 and 1908 Sears, Roebuck
catalogs (U.S.A.)
In America, women could buy commercial menstrual belts at least by 1891
(see the Jordan, Marsh & Co. catalog). Before
that time, women probably made their own menstrual gear based on patterns
handed down from mother to daughter or from the many books advising women
how to run a household (see a German pattern),
the chief occupation of middle-class women. Or they simply used old rags
or other absorbent material - or used nothing at all, but bled
into their clothing.
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Sears offered the belts and washable
pads below through its 1908 catalog. See a
1902 belt below
this section.
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As the ad states, above, women
could wear a belt over some underpants (drawers) because one style, the
older one, had an open crotch, allowing the pad to pass through the opening
and press against the vulva (see drawings). Open-crotch
underpants would soon disappear as fashion made sitting on a toilet less
trouble, what with less cumbersome dresses (picture
of girl at left) (this is my theory).
Not to put too fine a point on it, but women wearing the
huge dresses of the time - see the drawing, at right, from the catalog in
question - found it much easier just to sit, thereby widening the already
wide crotch opening and putting the lady into firing position, if you will
(or even if you won't). No need to reach under the dress and pull her underpants
down.
(I don't know how or if women wiped themselves afterward;
the dress itself would easily trap odors, so maybe it was not considered
to be important. And people bathed much less in 1908; everyone itched and
scratched and hurt much more than today. I did not see toilet paper or holders
for it in the bathroom pictures or listings in this catalog).
And there was little danger that anyone could peek up her
dress (see her foot), so an open crotch was safe, although the lower part
of the drawers was often decorated, maybe for the chance glimpse. Just one
guy's opinion.
Drawing of lady in dress, at right,
from the catalog:
A nicely dressed woman in 1908 had a lot to fuss with when she sat on a
toilet. And can you imagine changing a pad, one she would save in order
to wash, attached to the pad holders on this page? Inserting and removing
a tampon would have been even more difficult, maybe impossible without undressing,
requiring a good aim while spreading the vulva. This style of clothing may
have helped delay the appearance of the commercial
tampon, which probably surfaced in the U.S.A. in the early 1930s. (The
1908 Sears catalog called this dress "AN EXTREMELY STYLISH SHIRT WAIST
SUIT OF CHIFFON TAFFETA SILK," and I know it's not correct to say so,
but it's beautiful, as is the model and her hair.)
Two examples of pads bending to fashion are the panty
pad for thongs and stick-in pads for tight-fitting
underpants, which apparently appeared in the mid-1930s.
And read the 1927 report of Dr. Lillian Gilbreth
to Johnson & Johnson to see how women wanted pads to fit current fashion.
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See an interesting chart from 1923 showing
a proposed relationship between dress length, etc., and painful menstruation,
in Woman's Physical Freedom, a book by Clelia
Duel Mosher, M.D.
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The ads continue below.
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The ad below - I broke it in two because
of its size - came from the 1902 Sears, Roebuck
catalog. Remember that the first successful disposable menstrual
pad, Kotex, appeared in advertising in 1921,
so women in 1902 had to wash their homemade or store-bought pads, often
first letting them soak overnight, perhaps in a bucket under a sink, to
loosen the dried blood. (You can do that today, too, with modern washable pads.) Sears sold
ready-made washable cotton pads, as you read at the bottom of the ad text.
Readers could also buy a douche
liquid, "sanitive wash," for cleaning
out the vagina after menstruation (Mrs. Pinkham sold a "sanative"
wash - note the difference in spelling in the list
of her products - also a douche liquid. See more
douche liquids.) Sears
sold many varieties of douching apparatus for decades, sometimes probably
intended for killing sperm after intercourse, since the U.S.A. tightly restricted abortion and contraception.
(Read about and see
a later douche bulb,
and read why it's not good to douche.)
Customers in 1902 knew their Roman mythology better than most of us,
and Venus and Diana, which Sears called another style of belt, were goddesses
chosen to appeal to the ladies, Diana being associated with the moon and
thus menstruation. And who wouldn't want to be linked with Venus, secretly
anyway?
The ad calls this "the only practical protector,"
also in the similar ad above; this is odd, since Sears sold others, although
significantly not on the same page. Ah, the world of marketing!
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© 2001 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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