Tampax enjoys its fame from having sold the first
tampon with an applicator (early 1930s),
patented (above) by Dr. Earle Haas of Denver,
Colorado (U.S.A.). Other companies in the U.S.A.
sold tampons without applicators before 1936. (See the Wix
tampon, for example, or probably Nunap and fax.)
Dr. Haas was born in 1888, graduated from
the Kansas City College of Osteopathy in 1918 and spent 10 years in Colorado
as a country general practitioner, then went to Denver in 1928.
He invented a flexible ring for a contraceptive diaphragm (and made
$50,000 from selling the patent), sold real estate and was president of
a company that manufactured antiseptics.
Haas wanted to invent something better than the "rags" his
wife and other women had to wear, he said, and got the idea for his tampon
from a friend in California who used a sponge in
the vagina to absorb menstrual flow.
So he developed a plug of cotton inserted by means of two cardboard
tubes; he didn't want the woman to have to touch the cotton. (All this information
comes from the Tambrands booklet "Small Wonder:
How Tambrands began, prospered and grew," no date, but published
probably in the middle 1980s, I believe to celebrate Tampax's 50th anniversary.)
After failing to get people interested in his invention (including the
Johnson & Johnson company), on October 16, 1933 he finally sold the
patent and trademark to a Denver businesswoman, Gertrude
Tenderich, for $32,000. She started the Tampax
company and was its first president. Tenderich was an ambitious German
immigrant who made the first Tampax tampons at her home using a sewing machine
and Dr. Haas's compression machine.
The London Sunday Times newspaper in 1969 named Haas one of the "1000
Makers of the Twentieth Century."
After selling the rights to the tampon, he continued with his doctor's
practice and various business enterprises. He regretted later selling the
rights, but was glad it was successful, and died at 96 in 1981. Up to right
before his death he continued to try to improve the tampon.
© 1998 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce
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