Read a Personal Products booklet for older girls, The
Periodic Cycle (1938). See similar booklets
on this site.
See a Kotex ad advertising a Marjorie May
booklet.
See many more similar booklets.
See ads for menarche-education booklets:
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1932),
Tampax tampons (1970, with Susan Dey), Personal
Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and German o.b.
tampons (lower ad, 1981)
And read Lynn Peril's series about these
and similar booklets!
Read the full text of the 1935 Canadian edition
of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday, probably identical to the American edition.
More ads for teens (see also introductory
page for teenage advertising): Are you in the know? (Kotex napkins and Quest napkin powder, 1948, U.S.A.),
Are you in the know? (Kotex
napkins and belts, 1949, U.S.A.)Are you in
the know? (Kotex napkins, 1953, U.S.A.),
Are you in the know? (Kotex
napkins and belts, 1964, U.S.A.), Freedom
(1990, Germany), Kotex (1992, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Pursettes (1974, U.S.A.), Saba (1975, Denmark)
See early tampons and a list of tampon on this site - at least the ones I've cataloged.
 
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Kotex Very Personally Yours
puberty & menstruation booklets, 1948 (complete below),
1961 & 1981 (covers with links to complete booklet)
These booklets are part of a series of Kotex puberty
booklets (Marjorie May
and As One Girl To Another);
and Kotex was not the only company that made them (see links to the left
and above). Notice how formal
the 1948 booklet looks, with the "engraved" card, perhaps an attempt
to dignify the subject. It also creates distance to the contents and, of
course, reveals nothing
about it; it could be an invitation to the White House. At least the later
version has a girl on the cover.
And Kotex praises Allah! I could imagine
Bing Crosby doing so in his casual, jaded patter in a movie with Bob Hope
from that time. Islam and the Middle East were flying carpets (even in ads)
and exotic love poetry for most Americans. But in today's world it rivets your attention. Read more
slang of the time, also, oddly, from Kotex. (Kotex ditched the stilted
language of the Marjorie May stories and, in the
1940s, leaped into the arms of the masses with As One
Girl to Another, a nice move.)
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© 2007 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
of
the work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written
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to hfinley@mum.org
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