COMIC STRIP: Sylvia (by Nicole Hollander), about this museum (5 August 1995)
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the 19th century and before?
See the B-ettes tampon. See the tampon directory.
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, 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)
More ads for teens: 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).
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
HOMEPAGE |
MUM address & What does MUM mean? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
Art of menstruation (and awesome ancient art of menstruation) |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Birth control and religion |
Birth control drugs, old |
Birth control douche & sponges |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Contraceptive drugs, old |
Contraceptive douche & sponges |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory |
Founder/director biography |
Gynecological topics by Dr. Soucasaux |
Humor |
Huts |
Links |
Masturbation |
Media coverage of MUM |
Menarche booklets for girls and parents |
Miscellaneous |
Museum future |
Norwegian menstruation exhibit |
Odor |
Olor |
Pad, towel, napkin directory |
Patent medicine |
Poetry directory |
Products, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents|
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
Shame |
Slapping, menstrual |
Sponges |
Synchrony |
Tampon directory |
Early tampons |
Teen ads directory |
Tour of the former museum |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory |
Underpants & panties directory |
Videos, films directory |
Words and expressions about menstruation |
Would you stop menstruating if you could? |
What did women do about menstruation in the past? |
Washable pads |
Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.


Former physical Museum of Menstruation. Unfinished comic strip about the museum.

I mostly stopped updating this page in the mid oughts but here are
Publications, radio and television
around the world that have mentioned or discussed MUM, including

British Broadcasting Corp.-TV (and the program Everywoman, on BBC World Service radio, and in its magazine, Eve), BBC Radio 1, Australian Broadcasting Corp., Swedish National Radio, Irish National Radio (2FM), Switzerland Télévision Suisse Romande (Bon Entendu, Geneva, May 2001), German TV Pro Sieben, PBS (U.S.A.), Canadian TV (the film Under Wraps), Moral Court show (Oct.-Nov. 2000, Fox Network television, U.S.A.), Comedy Central TV network (tour of MUM by Beth Littleford on The Daily Show), German TV RTL2, many U.S. and foreign radio stations, including Howard Stern (also his cable TV program), Bob & Mike Show, The Sean Moncrieff Show (Newstalk, radio interview by phone,  Dublin, Ireland, October 2, 2015)

Information on this MUM site assisted in designing the pads and belts used by the "frontier" women on Frontier House project (WNET-TV, New York, 2001)

RoadsideAmerica.com: Museum of Menstruation, a Field Review by the Team at RoadsideAmerica.com

Washington Post, 26 April 2016: "A period comes to an end: 100 years of menstruation products."
VICE Media
, September 28, 2015
: "How One Man Ran the World's Only Menstruation Museum from His Basement."
The Atlantic, October 2015: "There Will Be Blood: The backlash to the man who founded the Museum of Menstruation raises the question: Is there a right way for men to talk about periods?"

PERIODICALS: ADWEEK (Perspective: The Lady Problem, Jan. 2012), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Newsletter, American Health, Anna Bella (Switzerland), Australian Net Directory Magazine, Australian Women's Forum, Baltimore Sun, Boing-Boing, Bust (and I was one of the Men We Love, "Bustiest," in the Fall 2000 issue), Chatelaine, Chicago Tribune (11 June 1995), Chicago Sun Times, City Paper (Washington, D.C., 30 September 1994, and Baltimore [cover story 1995, updated 2007]), Cleveland Plain Dealer, Colors (France), Concord (Mass.) Telegraph, Corriere del Sera (Io Donna magazine, 2005, Italy), Curve, Detroit Free Press, Dishy magazine (Turkey, 2005), Dolly (Australia), Eve (BBC publication for women), Fabula, Family Practice News, Folha de Sao Paulo (Brazil), Ft. Lauderdale (Florida) Sun-Sentinel, Ft. Worth (Texas) Star-Tribune, Forum Magazine, Freizeit-Kurier (Austria), Girlfriend (Australia), Girlfriends Magazine (U.S.A.), The Guardian (United Kingdom), Glamour, HQ (Australia), The (London, England) Independent on Sunday, Internal Medicine News, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Jump, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Weekly, Manchester Guardian (England), Il Manifesto (Italy), Maclean's magazine (Canada), Marie Claire (United Kingdom, Latin America and Italy editions), Macleans's magazine (Canada), The Medical Reporter, Milk (Australia), MinnPost (April 2016), Ms., Nassau Weekly (Princeton, N.J.), The New Physician, New Scientist magazine (U.K.), News-Letter (Johns Hopkins University student newspaper), The New York Times (three articles), The Nose, Ob-Gyn News, El País (Madrid, Spain), O Globo (Brazil), Penthouse, People Today (Australia), Pioneer Log (Lewis and Clark College, Oregon), Playboy, Playgirl, POPsmear, Prince George's Journal, Print, Prospect, The Rag (Canada), Reforma newspaper (Mexico City), San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sassy, SCA Customer Magazine, SCA Inside Hygiene Products, Self, Seventeen (U.S.A. and Philippines), Sojourner. Der Spiegel, Germany's largest newsmagazine, used a picture from MUM in an online series on the history of birth control (second picture) (text in German). Stuff (United Kingdom), Sydney Morning Herald (2 Oct 1999) (Australia), taz (die tageszeitung, Germany), Terrapin (University of Maryland student newspaper), Throttle, Toronto Star (Canada), Vagabond (Norway), The Village Voice [book version] (New York City), Washington Post (original Post article 15 April 1995; commentary, bottom of page; and another article on 26 April 2016), Washington Times, Who Weekly (Australia), Women's Sports and Fitness, and other publications in England, New Zealand, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Sweden.

COMIC STRIP: Sylvia (by Nicole Hollander), about this museum (5 August 1995)

BOOKS: America's Strangest Museums (Sandra Gurvis; Citadel Press, 1996); Things On The Net Newt Wouldn't Want You To See (B. Ballsey; Off Color Press, 1996); Offbeat Museums (Saul Rubin; Santa Monica Press, 1997); The Human Sexes (Desmond Morris, 1998); The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation (Karen Houppert; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999); The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Debbie Stoller, Marcelle Karp; Penguin USA, 1999); The Woman's Guide to Sex on the Internet (Anne Semans and Cathy Winks; HarperSanFrancisco, 1999); El tabú (Margarita Rivière and Clara de Cominges; Editorial Planeta, Spain, 2001); The V Book: A Doctor's Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health, (Elizabeth G. Stewart and Paula Spencer; Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, 2002), 100 Places Every Woman Should Go by Stephanie Griest (Travelers' Tales, Palo Alto, Ca., 2007)

I (Harry Finley) have entries in Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America.

ON THE WEB: Encyclopedia Britannica Internet Guide Award; Lycos rated MUM in the top 5% of all sites; "Best of the Net" site for the category of Women's Health within the About Women's History site (October 2002); E! Online got information from me about the history of women's underpants (2006); The Web Magazine gave this site its highest overall rating; The Mining Company called this site the Best of the Net, May 1999; and Snap! Online called this site the Best of the Web in the Entertainment Channel. Roadside America, a museum-review site, discussed MUM, as did Salon.com. Der Spiegel, Germany's largest newsmagazine, used a picture from MUM in an online series on the history of birth control (second picture) (text in German).

About MUM:

"It's fabulous that somebody out there is willing to . . . pull back the curtain."

(Mona Miller, national media relations director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, discussing this museum ["MUSEUM LIKE NO OTHER"] in The Prince George's Journal, Maryland, U.S.A., 4 April 1995)


"May God close your horable museum."

(from a letter, with original spelling, to the Museum of Menstruation, from "Shocked, by women," mailed from Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A., 9 March 1995)


"Stick to jock itch products, buddy."

(in a commentary about the museum and its creator in the defunct Sassy, an American magazine for teenage girls, 1990s)


"I hope that your museum continues to prosper."

(Jane Holley Connors, executive producer, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which broadcast a 16-minute interview from the museum, 1990s)


"Ultimately, I turned to friends and to women in the medical profession for on-line recommendations [for Web sites about women's health]. Knowing my thresholds for panic, pain and typos, they offered me a list of Web sites that proved more useful than my random search. My favorites included the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health (www.mum.org/), an odd, funny and well-researched site (created by a man), on the history of menstruation as told by women around the world."

(Janice Maloney, "Finding Some Warm Havens in the Web's Information Blizzard," Women's Health: A Special Section, The New York Times, 21 June 1998. This site was the first of the few sites recommended in the article.)


"It is a first for me, who has worked in women's health for eight years, to see such painstaking documentation of a societal taboo. It is a wonderful thing to give women an alternative forum that is positive, as our society has convinced us that the very cycle that makes us women is somehow unhealthy and unclean; nothing could be further from the truth."

(Diane Imelda Fleming, Family Planning Council Training Department, writing of this museum)


"Also, from a less scientific but more lively survey, hundreds of women have posted replies to the question 'Would you stop menstruating if you could?' at the online Museum of Menstruation. This gem of a website is a virtual repository for everything you ever wanted to know about women's periods."

(Sylvia Pagán Westphal, in the article "Lifting the Curse," New Scientist magazine, 16 March 2002. The only "Further reading" listed at the end of the article was the book Is Menstruation Obsolete? [Elsimar Coutinho and Sheldon Segal, Oxford University Press, 1999] and this Web site. Read and contribute to "Would you stop menstruating if you could?"


"You're a brave man."

(An official of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research at the only meeting of the organization I attended, 1990s. She told me this in a soft voice while looking at the floor in an area away from the other attendees - and officials.)



"You will be sacrificed."
(Woman visitor looking at the museum archives, 1990s)



"Harry, you have a lot of balls."
Former boss's boss, Department of Defense.


© 2000-2015 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