Cellucotton, early
newspaper reports and later Kotex ads
Kotex box and pad, 1930s - ads,
1930 & 1931 - Phantom Kotex ad, with ad for
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, a menarche booklet, 1932 - Kotex
doesn't show! 3 ads for Kotex menstrual pads, 1927, 1932, 1955 (U.S.A.)
- Kotex doesn't show! #2:
June 1932 - ad, 1932, for Kotex and Kleenex
- Phantom Kotex, July, 1932 - picture in ad of
Mary Pauline Callender, author of the Marjorie
May booklets (more biographical info) - 1932,
Phantom Kotex - leaflet
ad for Wondersoft pads, belt, Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, 1933
- 1933, Phantom Kotex - box
and pads, 1930s? - wrapped Kotex pad for West
Disinfecting Company dispenser (mid 1930s)
Many more PADS
First Kotex magazine ad? January 1921
- the first Kotex ad campaign (1921) - a prototype ("To Save Men's Lives
Science Discovered Kotex,") for the first ad, about 1920 - first
newspaper ad? (1920) and early newspaper ads
The very early Kotex tampons Moderne
Woman, fax,
Nunap, & Fibs,
all 1930s. Kotex second stick
tampons (U.S.A.) & its ads, 1960s to 1970s
- Kotams mesh-string tampon with 2-tube insertion
device (1944?) - also called Kotams: first Kotex
stick tampon, 1960-65 - Comfortube tampons (1967),
box, tampons
See also Ads for Teens
Booklets menstrual hygiene companies made
for girls, women and teachers - patent medicine
- a list of books and articles about menstruation
- videos
 
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Ad for Kotex pads, belts, & Marjorie May puberty
education booklet
in a never-used 1930s sewing pattern for womens sports trousers
underpants, sanitary napkin, tampon,
pad, belts, menstruation,
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (1938), clothing,
sewing
The donor wrote:
Hi there!
A friend passed on your site you me, and I thought you might like these
scans for your site. I found this inside a never used sewing pattern for
1930s womens sports trousers. I thought it was a pretty clever marketing
scheme.
Best wishes,
****
Publications for women were the ideal place
for companies to place ads for menstrual gear. Women traditionally sewed
at home and could easily find - and privately - information about menstruation
pads and other products directed to her nether regions.
Nether regions and knitting also formed
the launching, um, pad for vibrators - you
know, the rocket-shaped instruments women use(d) to pleasure themselves
(a term of art).
To the astonishment of Natalie Angier and 99.9 percent of her readers
in the New York Times (me too), a researcher found strange ads in old knitting
magazines for those rocket-shaped things. Rachel Maines investigated and
wrote a riveting book about a centuries-old practice
bravely published by my alma mater, Johns Hopkins..
This ad somewhat resembles another ad of the
time.
I thank the donor for scanning the ads and sending the scans to MUM!
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Below: Ad 1 (enlarged) lies below
this small image.
I bisected the enlarged ads, drained these black-and-white ads of their
background yellow and put them below.
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Below: Ad 2 (enlarged) you'll find on the
next page.
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Below: Left side of Ad 1. The scan donor
did not say how big it was
or where it was on the sewing pattern.
See a Quest can & more ads for it.
What's a POSITIVE deodorant?
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Below: About this time Tampax
also made tampons in different sizes and, fascinatingly, used
the same words.
You would scream if you had to dispose
of pads this way. Kotex helpfully showed you how in a booklet.
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Below: Below:
Right side of Ad 1.
Kotex faced huge competition from other brands since the 1920s, especially
from Modess (see a later Consumer
Reports from 1949), which seems to have encouraged it to explain its
pads in detail.
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Below: Read more about the interesting
life and Kotex connection of Irishwoman Mary Pauline
Callender, who wrote the Marjorie May booklets
for girls.
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© 2010 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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