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, 1970s)
And read Lynn Peril's series about these
and similar booklets!
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 page
 
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A Happy Keeper Menstrual Cup User, and "t-topics"
MUM received this testimonial last week (see previous comments):
"I've used my Keeper for about a year now and I'm
very pleased with it. I find it comfortable, convenient, and it saves me
a lot of money! It's especially great for traveling--I took mine to the Sudan with me, where I was living in a rural
village with no plumbing or conveniences like drugstores. I wore it on a
10-hour drive across the desert where it would have been impossible to stop
or find a place to change a tampon or pad, and it saved me from having to
carry around several months worth of menstrual products wherever I traveled.
I love it!"
And this missive from Lisa,
"When I was a counselor at summer camp there was
a joke about t-girls and p-girls...tampon girls and pad girls. I even made a little newsletter
after camp and sent it to a friend or two. It was called "t-topics." It was kind
of stupid and kind of funny. I like your Web site".
Lisa says if she finds the newsletter, she might let
us read it!
Are Animals Attracted to Menstrual and Vaginal Odors? And Warning: Tampons!
There are a few articles on the Internet discussing the
appeal of menstrual odor to animals, including the human kind, and related
topics, but this
site is pretty good, and will dispel
some myths.
A good summary
of the dangers of tampons and a California initiative is given here;
the latter includes forcing manufacturers to list the contents of menstrual
hygiene products on packages (especially dioxin).
Do You Know of Folk Tales About Cycles?
"I am new to the Internet but would like to use the
vast array of material there to further my quest for traditional stories which explore menstruation.
"It may be that they are allegories for the cyclical
bleeding, contain cyclical rhythms in their plots or are metaphors for the
waxing and waning which is experienced by menstruating women.
"Can you refer me to good sites?
"I'm sorry this isn't exactly news - but maybe to
some people it is and I would love to receive feedback and some guidance
in my brave new adventure!"
Can anyone help her? What a great domain name (the word after@)!
MUM to Speak at the Conference
of the Society for Menstrual Cycle
Research
Harry Finley - that's me - will give a talk entitled "The Museum of Menstruation at a Turning Point" at the biannual meeting of SMCR at the University of Illinois at Chicago in early
June this year. I'll give exact dates and times when they are available.
This year's conference is associated with the Center for Women and Gender
at the university.
These conferences typically serve as delivery places for
technical papers related to menstruation, and as a meeting place for folks
from around the world interested in the scientific and cultural aspects
of menstruation.
The turning point referred to above is the time, right
now, that the museum is ready to expand and become completely public. Wish your MUM luck!
MUM will also
visit GirlCon
'97 at Wellesley College (Massachusetts, U.S.A.) in the guise of Miki Walsh. If the GirlCon powers approve
it, Miki will give a talk about this
museum, and show the Canadian television film Under Wraps, which I never seem to stop talking about
- with reason: it's the best ever made about menstruation.
Washington
Post Investigated Director of MUM
I think I should mention one of the most bizarre happenings here at
MUM.
About two years ago, on 15 April 1995, the Washington
Post newspaper printed a lengthy article about this museum. But the story
had been delayed about a week - the
Post even had to quickly pull its radio ad about MUM for the publication
day - because of an editor's
insisting that the paper do a background investigation on yours truly, the founder and director of MUM. Apparently more than one person
on the staff was upset with the museum (and a staff member actually lodged a complaint),
and it was a male editor who held the story up (I believe a female editor suggested the
story; a woman reporter wrote it). The paper apparently feared that after
the favorable story appeared, a reader would call or write, wondering why
the paper didn't know that Harry Finley was - well, you fill in the blank.
After days of calls from a staff member requesting information
about my security clearance ("secret") at my Department of Defense
job (the story cryptically mentions this), and my (non-existent) police
record, and after the police had declared that I was "clean,"
the story appeared on a Saturday morning.
Actually, someone at Mademoiselle magazine told a Post
reporter about the existence of MUM, and that reporter called me to ask
to attend the opening of MUM, on 31 July 1994 (a reporter from Seventeen
magazine was there, too), which I, of course, agreed to. Before leaving,
she said that a Post photographer would visit the next week, but none did
and a story never appeared. I suspect that an editor - male? - killed the
idea.
One of my fears before and after starting
MUM was that I was doing something wrong, that a museum
of menstruation was somehow illegal,
and I don't mean the business aspect; I have scrupulously observed the rules.
I mean that maybe menstruation was
illegal - now, isn't that silly? Two close male acquaintances
both warned me that the police would
raid MUM, and I was vaguely worried about the same
thing.
The problem is that no
one should be interested in menstruation, in most people's
view, and certainly not a man - oh, well, maybe a doctor, because menstruation
is after all something quasi-pathological; that's the gut feeling of an enormous number of people.
Menstruation is actually un-American, because it happens in an unmentionable party of the body and
it's messy and only women do it; I'm
surprised Congress has not yet investigated it, since
it's investigating everything else.
This story has repeated itself in other ways in the past
three years. That means the world needs
a MUM to set it straight, and soon.
NEXT earlier news. Next later news.
See Tampax tampons (1970, with Susan Dey), Personal Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and
German o.b. tampons (lower ad, 1981) See a Lucky Strike cigarettes ad from 1933.
See ads for menarche-education booklets:
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday
(Kotex, 1933),
See also the booklets How
shall I tell my daughter? (Modess, various dates), Growing
up and liking it (Modess, various dates),
and Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1928).
And read Lynn Peril's series about these and
similar booklets!
See another ad for As One Girl to Another (1942),
and the booklet itself.
© 1997 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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