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As One Girl to Another (complete booklet, 1940, Kotex, U.S.A.) - Teacher's kit (complete, early 1950s, Personal Products Corp., U.S.A.) - Shame in menstrual hygiene. A very early Tampax ad (1936)
See ads for menarche-education booklets: Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1933), Tampax tampons (1970, with Susan Dey), Personal Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and German o.b. tampons (lower ad, 1970s)
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Walt Disney's film for Kotex: the Story of Menstruation

See the film at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kWR-rIKRe4

I can show you a few frames from the most interesting film in the history of menstrual education - one of the few interesting ones, since everybody treads so softly around this subject - the 1946 one Walt Disney animated for Kotex.

Disney by then, of course, was the greatest animator of them all, having created Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck (my favorite, and around whom - do I use "whom" for a duck? - a cult has developed) and animated some great films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Bambi, which brings tears to my eyes when I think about Bambi's mother. Oh, well, I'll get over it. Leave me alone! No, no, I'm OK.

Kotex does not bring tears to my eyes, but it might to those of you who have to wear any kind of pad or even tampon or anything else. Kotex pads reigned in MenstruationAmerica from the early 1920s for decades and produced the earliest company booklets for menstrual education I know of for children and their parents, the Marjorie May series (see most of one made for the Australian market in 1928, and later American [1938] and Canadian [1935, 1938] editions; see the directory for all similar booklets).

Note that Walt Disney apparently had to get permission from Kotex to do a film about menstruation. See what I mean about Kotex's power? Kotex very courteously agreed. As if Kotex didn't ask, or beg, Disney in the first place. But we expect such delicacy in a field where ad writers emphasize "daintiness" and "feeling fresh" and so many things are unsaid - and where blue packaging predominates over red (read a 1928 discussion of this). It's amazing that Disney agreed to associate itself with the topic; the company that made Kotex, Kimberly-Clark, didn't advertise its connection for decades.

I don't know when the earliest film or film strip appeared explaining menstruation appeared - mail me if you know - but it would be hard to top using white to represent menstrual blood, as this film does (I saw the film years ago).

Of course Disney-cuteness rules, but Disney cartoons meant a lot to people then.


"A Kindly Contributor" who is kindly indeed sent me the frames below with this e-mail:

Hi--

Thought your Web site might benefit from these still frames taken from a 16mm print of the the 1946 Disney/Kotex production.

Regards,

A Kindly Contributor


See Kotex ads from 1943 and 1948, and see the first Kotex ad, with some history of the company. Browse the pad directory.

As One Girl to Another (complete booklet, 1940, Kotex, U.S.A.) - Teacher's kit (complete, early 1950s, Personal Products Corp., U.S.A.) - Shame in menstrual hygiene. A very early Tampax ad (1936)
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© 2003 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