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)CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about
menstruation and Would
you stop
menstruating if you
could?
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Modess menstrual
pads
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| Horrors!
Someone might see me with a box of
menstrual pads! Wrap it up! The middle-aged son of a pharmacist who visited the museum when it was in my house told me how as a boy he helped his dad wrap boxes of menstrual pads - Kotex, Modess mostly - in brown paper so ladies could buy one already concealed. Believe it or not, this was such a concern that Kotex even showed druggists how to stack boxes on the counter and let women put coins in a box and just take what they wanted. No asking a clerk! (Further down the same page you read of Kotex boxes wrapped in white paper.) And Modess advertised "ready-wrapped" boxes already in the 1920s. Putting too fine a point on this, in a famous study of Modess, women complained about the too-conspicuous boxes even in their own houses! Kotex could be conspicuous from the get-go. I dare you to find anything directly pointing to menstruation in this ad, typical of this Modess era, especially in its famous Modess .... because ads. "So discreet ... helps keep your secret so nicely." (Anne Frank called menstruation her "sweet secret." Many women would drop the "sweet.")
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Below: The
full-page ad from an unknown magazine
in maybe the 1950s.
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Earlier Modess ad
emphasizing concealment