Kotex ad emphasizing shame, 1992See ads for Pursettes: September 1972 (letter testimonial) - August 1973 (letter testimonial) - February 1974 (cartoon story) - August 1974 (cartoon story) - October 1974 (cartoon story) See a 1965 ad for a Pursettes school educational kit - Pursettes Getting to Know Yourself booklet for girls - other teaching booklets: Growing Up and Liking It and How Shall I Tell My Daughter?See more 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 pageDIRECTORY of all topics (See also the SEARCH ENGINE, bottom of page.)CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation
and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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Kotex's early ads, from 1921 through the end of the twenties, exemplified what might be called the Golden Age of American Illustration. The artists painted - and photographed - realistically and very well, as you see below. None of that newfangled art from the Armory Show 14 years earlier: no influence of Brancusi, Seurat or Cézanne. Ads sell products and if readers don't like the art - some of the Armory art offends the average person today - they don't buy.Kotex doesn't mince words presenting its product. Women must protect themselves and their surroundings from any trace of menstruation, be it odor or stain or bulge - considerations that ring true today. What's more, registered nurse Ellen J. Buckland, who is credited with the ad's text, writes, "A majority of the commoner ailments, according to some medical authorities, are due to the use of unsanitary, makeshift ways in meeting woman's most distressing hygienic problem." (This echoes German doctors' pleas of a few decades earlier to at least use something!) By 1927 fewer women made their own washable menstrual napkins (see an Italian sample, which is more elaborate than the common bird's-eye item many Americans created), but enough for Nurse Buckland to lead off her pitch discouraging its use, although she does not call it by its name, mentioning only "laundry" - neither does she use the word "menstruation" or its synonyms other than "handicap" and "problem."Kotex and later, Tampax, both paired medical authority with their products, just as many companies did, using the public's respect for the medical establishment as a selling tool.Kotex was king - um, queen? - in 1927 but challenged by many other companies, here and abroad. Read more about these competing products in the fascinating Gilbreth Report of 1927.And see more early Kotex ads and an ad for another way to ban traces of menstruation. |
Click on the ad to see readable enlargements,
or click for the main picture, ad
text, and the small drawings at right.
Kotex ad emphasizing shame, 1992
See ads for menarche-education booklets:
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday
(Kotex, 1933), Tampax tampons (1970, with Susan Dey),
Personal Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and
German o.b. tampons (lower ad, 1981)
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