Leona Chalmer's 1937
book with a drawing of a cup.
And read comments from people who have used a cup.
Do cups cause endometriosis? Not enough
evidence, says the FDA.
 
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A History of the Menstrual Cup
Leona Chalmers possibly produces the first commercial
menstrual cup, around 1937
Ad at bottom of page
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Illustrations from the Chalmers patent.
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Two important innovations in menstrual hygiene occurred in the 1930s:
the commercial tampon and the menstrual cup
(although a strange predecessor was patented
in 1867, as were others later, not only in the U.S.A.). But because of certain
characteristics of these devices, neither threatened the reign of the sanitary
napkin, essentially meaning Kotex. This remains true (although Kotex is
no longer the top-selling pad).
The drawing of the cup from Leona Chalmers's patent (U.S. patent 2,089,113)
(far left) shows that it is very similar to the Tassette, Tassaway and The
Keeper cups produced later (see photos). Chalmers
suggested in the patent that it be made of vulcanized rubber. (She discusses
its use and shows a drawing in her book from
1937.)
According to Robert Oreck, the founder and president of Tassette, Inc.,
a later company started in the late 1950s, this first cup started production
just as World War ll began, and stalled because of the shortage of rubber.
Women did not like the cup because it was hard, too heavy and, I suspect,
simply because they did not want to put things into their vaginas with their
fingers. The Tampax tampon, first sold in 1936, met similar resistance from
the public and also from doctors, who had some medical objections.
This raises the issue of femininity. Advertisers
for menstrual hygiene products use the word to mean daintiness and delicacy
and avoidance of unseemly words, actions and things, including those related
to sex and the body's secretions. Ladylike and modest might mean the same
thing. Especially American women wanted, and many still want, to avoid the
reality of menstruation, with its messiness, unpredictability and its undertones
of the unclean, sex, and sexual avoidance. Most women must overcome many
barriers, some very practical, before they will put their fingers into their
vaginas.
The drawing at top right, also from this patent, shows where the cup
sits, low in the vagina, just where the three
successor cups sat (which includes The Keeper). The most recently developed
cup, Instead, rests high in the vagina, near the cervix,
which I think even more affronts the feeling
of femininity, and also of cleanliness, still held by many women. But Instead
is not aiming for a large market.
Mrs. Chalmers, who continued to sell the cup after
the war, wrote the undated booklet below (here we see the cover and an interior
page; I made the pages different sizes to save a bit of bytes) sometime
between the late 1930s and the middle 1950s, probably before she joined
with Robert Oreck in 1957 in a second (text
continued under the pictures)
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attempt to sell the Tassette, this time on a large
scale. The style of the photographs suggests the 1930s. It
was the late 1950s before the cup reappeared
(part 2) on a large scale, and this time Mrs. Chalmers was working with
Robert Oreck, but America had hardly changed in its
attitudes towards the cup. It still has not.
(Most of the information above about Tassette, Tassaway and Chalmer's
patent came from Advertising Age, Barron's, Drug Trade News, Editor and
Publisher, Investment Dealer's Digest from the 1960s and 1970s; and from
a Stock Prospectus dated 28 August 1961. Mr. Oreck refused my request for
an interview, referring me to another company official; I could not find
her.)
© 1997-2006 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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