Compare the American "Modess . . . . because"
ads, a Modess ad from 1928, the French
Modess, and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark)
for teens.
See a prototype of the first Kotex ad.
See more Kotex items: Ad 1928 (Sears
and Roebuck catalog) - Marjorie May's Twelfth
Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many
links here to Kotex items) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal
method - box from about 1969 - Preparing
for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls) - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See
more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
Comic strip: A conservative American
family visits the (future) Museum of Menstruation
 
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Modess sanitary towel (napkin) ad,
Great Britain,
29 February 1936, in Woman's Weekly
Modess, probably the main competitor of Kotex sanitary napkins in America
for decades after its creation in 1926, seems to have taken its name from
"modest," which is exactly what this black-and-white ad expresses.
Roughly contemporary Modess ads in the U.S. were showier (1928
and 1931) - they might reflect the difference
in American and British temperaments.
Look at an American Modess pad from the 1930s.
But about ten years later Modess in America became so modest it almost
lost its tongue. The long "Modess . . . . because"
series featured glamourous women and little ad copy - certainly not identifying
what Modess was.
It was - blush - too modest to say.
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Americans like me sometimes need help in reading English:
a draper is "a dealer in cloth and sometimes also in clothing
and dry goods" according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary.
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Compare the American "Modess . . . . because"
ads, a Modess ad from 1928, the French
Modess,
and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark)
for teens.
© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute 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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