See Pad-n-all, a similar pad with
belt from about the same time.
 
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Delicate, a menstrual pad with belt in a tube, U.S.A., after 1943
I don't have to tell you that women must carry menstrual supplies with
them, something hard to do before tampons appeared in the early 1930s (see
a very early Tampax). But in the 1940s (or before)
a company invented a tampon-size sanitary napkin with belt enclosed in an
innocuous-looking tube - the child or purse snatcher or boyfriend might
think it's lipstick - just the ticket to conceal that time of the month,
a constant effort in American and many other cultures. (But some cultures
advertise menstruation by segregating women, parts of India,
for example.)
I sure hope the victims, er, users, of this product
tried it out before using it outside the house. I can hear the curses now
as she struggles to unfurl the darned thing - well, see the next page for
details. (I was not able to get a British pad out of a tube!) And older pads (here)
dwarf this one, making me wonder if it did the job.
Look at the word Delicate on the front of the box; see the enlarged
version at the top of this page in the title
head for a better view. The letters have a greenish area in the upper part
of the yellow. This is probably caused by a misalignment of the printing
plates, common in run-of-the-mill printing jobs.
See a British pad in a tube, Lilia (1930s?) and ads for earlier
American pads in tubes in a Tourist Set, a package
of menstrual supplies for the traveling woman.
The Procter & Gamble Company kindly donated Delicate to MUM as
part of a gift of scores of old menstrual products from its archives.
Harry Finley created the images.
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The box measures 2 7/8" x 2 7/8" x 7/8" (about
7.3 x 7.3 x 2.2 cm)
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Left: The paper came loose in
the box, unlike the instructions, below, which wrapped around the tube.
Postal codes started in 1943 (see the address at the bottom
of the page); the lady's hairdo and clothing on the next page suggest the
1940s as the date of the product.
Below: The box holds three stiff
cardboard tubes, each wrapped in now decaying cellophane. One tube was open
when P&G sent it, someone there probably having opened it.
The tubes are about 2 7/8" (3.7 cm) long and a tad less
than 1" (ca. 2.5 cm) in diameter.
The user had to break the tube open and pull out the pad
and belt - and try to figure out how to use it.
See the results on the next page.
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© 2007 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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