See how a woman wore a belt in a Dutch ad.
See a classy 1920s ad for a belt and the first
ad (1891) MUM has for a belt.
See how women wore a belt (and in a Swedish
ad). See a modern belt
for a washable pad and a page from the 1946-47 Sears catalog showing a great variety.
More ads for napkin belts: Sears,
1928 - modern belts - modern washable
- Modess, 1960s
Actual belts in the
museum
And, of course, the first Tampax AND - special
for you! - the American fax tampon,
from the early 1930s, which also came in bags.
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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Ads for belts to hold menstrual pads, U.S.A., 1949, 1955
Women wore commercial belts at least from the latter part of the nineteenth
century (the earliest ad the museum has is an American one dated 1891). Because self-adhesive pads became available only
in the early 1970s, if women used pads, they had to wear belts, suspenders, "sanitary panties,"
(underpants with hooks or tabs or something else to hold the pad in place)
- or invent some way of getting the pad to stay in place.
Companies sold probably hundreds of varieties of belts in the past hundred
years, but the industry almost disappeared in the
early 1970s with the advent of pads with adhesive (Stayfree
and New Freedom).
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Below: March, 1949, Good Housekeeping magazine.
"Sanitary" - wink, wink, nudge, nudge - is sufficient to identify
it with menstruation. Look at the safety pins, which held the pad to the
belt, and which tampon ads and boxes endlessly trumpeted
as obsolete.
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Below: August, 1949, Good Housekeeping
magazine. "'Off' days" is a new addition to Words
and expressions about
menstruation. "On' is more common as part
of an expression - on that page, anyway.
See a booklet for girls by Beltx.
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Below: 21 February 1955, Life magazine.
"Those days" and "sanitary belt" are the menstrual hints
as well as "all through the month." The garter part of course
held up stockings (men wore garters too but not with a menstrual belt).
$2.50 seems like a lot to pay.
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Many actual belts
- Menstrual pad suspenders! See how women wore a belt (and in a Swedish ad).
See a modern belt for a washable
pad and a page from the 1946-47 Sears catalog
showing a great variety.
Menstrual panties.
© 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 permission of the
author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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