Belt topics
See how women wore a belt (and in a Swedish
ad). See a modern belt
for a washable pad and a page from the 1946-47
Sears catalog showing a great variety - ad for Hickory
belts, 1920s? - Modess belts in Personal Digest
(1966)
See a Modess True or False? ad in The American
Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley
in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
 
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Drawing of a proposed washable German belt and
pad, 1894
(from Livius Fürst, Die Hygiene der Menstruation
in normalem
und krankhaftem Zustande [The Hygiene of Menstruation in
the Normal and Diseased State; Leipzig, Germany, 1894)
According to one source, in the 19th century
most German women either made their menstrual pads or used
nothing at all! Tampons, available in the U.S.A. in the early 1930s,
seem to have appeared later in Europe (o.b. started after World War II).
Below is a drawing of a belt and pad proposed by a German writer and
gynecologist, Dr. Livius Fürst, in 1894. In the small drawing to the
right of the pad I show how the flap pulls up and buttons on the front of
the belt. He suggests using cotton as the filler for the pad.
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Translation:
The parts of the menstrual pad and belt
A B A = the buttons on the front
of the belt
A'B'C' = the corresponding button holes
C D C = those on the back of the belt
K = pad with cotton
G = rubber covering of the middle part [I don't see it either, but it must
be the dark part in the loop below the pad, K]
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© 2001 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
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