See Delicate, a similar pad with belt from
about the same time.
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).
 
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Pad-n-all, a combination menstrual pad and belt (1930s-1940s? U.S.A.)
Before today's adhesive pads (which started in the early 1970s - see
an early example), women had to wear a pad with
a belt or some other means of holding it against her vaginal opening, a
tougher task when underpants were not tight against the body, as before
about 1935.
Pad-n-all consists of an elastic belt attached permanently to what looks
like a cotton pad, which measures 7.5" x 3.25" (about 19.5 x 8.3
cm), and sure looks like a disaster to me. But in a pinch I guess it would
work; I know some things women have used in emergencies. It reminds me of
the single adhesive pads found in airplanes, but the latter seem more reliable.
One thing I've learned from the museum is that, physically, it's much
more complicated being a woman than a man, and often more dangerous, what
with having babies, etc. In many ways men have it easy.
The Procter & Gamble Company kindly donated Delicate to MUM as part
of a gift of scores of old products from its archives.
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The lack of a postal zone in the address on the package insert,
above, suggests the pad predates 1943, when the zones appeared in the U.S.A.
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See Delicate, a similar pad from about
the same time but which required more trouble to use.
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