Read most of a 1928 Australian edition of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday - Marjorie May Learns About Life (1936) - Facts About Menstruation that every Woman should know (1936)
Marjorie May, three booklets, 1935 main page
Read Lynn Peril's series about these and similar booklets! And see the covers of the booklets How shall I tell my daughter? and Personal Digest; read the whole booklet As One Girl to Another (Kotex, 1940).
See a Kotex ad advertising a Marjorie May booklet. See many more similar booklets.
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).
DIRECTORY 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?
Some MUM site links:
homepage | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address & What does MUM mean? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! | the art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | asbestos | belts | bidets | founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books: menstruation and menopause (and reviews) | cats | company booklets for girls (mostly) directory | contraception and religion | costumes | menstrual cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | facts-of-life booklets for girls | famous women in menstrual hygiene ads | FAQ | founder/director biography | gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux | humor | huts | links | masturbation | media coverage of MUM | menarche booklets for girls and parents | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | olor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | shame | slapping, menstrual | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour of the former museum (video) | underpants & panties directory | videos, films directory | Words and expressions about menstruation | Would you stop menstruating if you could? | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday
Puberty & menstruation booklet, Canada, 1932,
with folder and envelope
Front cover

The Cellucotton Products Company, formed by Kimberly-Clark Corporation to manufacture and market Kotex menstrual pads and, in the late 1930s, Fibs tampons - K-C apparently didn't want to associate itself with menstruation - quickly spread to countries outside the U.S.A. in the 1920s. (See part of an early Kotex booklet in Spanish and a 1928 Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday published in Australia.)

Kotex was eager to teach girls about menstruation because it often led to the user's buying the product for the rest of her menstruating life. Most mothers had long since avoided discussing the subject. The company makes a hilarious appeal (this page) to save money on something else, but please, NOT Kotex!

I bought this booklet from the descendants of the family that received it from Kotex in 1934. Someone, maybe the girl's mother, wrote in the booklet. The handwriting looks very adult.

In this Birthday, one of many editions, the author, Mary Pauline Callender (her photo) - if that is the author's real name - has toned down her language and done other editing of earlier editions. (Compare the first pages of the 1928 with this 1932 version.) But I still find some of the writing stilted and just plain bad (more comments here). I like As One Girl to Another, a slightly later Kotex booklet, better.

I like the art deco designs on most pages. And unlike the other Marjorie May booklets at MUM (see some), this one is in color.

The booklet is about 5.125" x 3.2" (about 12.9 x 8.1 cm).

Next: text of booklet: 1 2 3 4 5 6 | enclosed folder | envelope

See the roughly contemporary Cashay and Dale tampons, and very early Tampax and fax.

Copyright 2006 Harry Finley