Compare the "Silent Purchase" Modess ad (June 1928), the American "Modess . . . . because" ads, a Modess ad from 1931, the French Modess, and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark) for teens.
See a prototype of the first Kotex ad.
See more Kotex items: Ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many links here to Kotex items) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal method - box from about 1969 - Preparing for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls) - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
Ads for the Kotex stick tampon (U.S.A., 1970s) - a Japanese stick tampon from the 1970s.
Early commercial tampons - Rely tampon - Meds tampon (Modess)
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? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! | the art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | asbestos | belts | bidets | founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books: menstruation and menopause (and reviews) | cats | company booklets for girls (mostly) directory | contraception and religion | costumes | menstrual cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | facts-of-life booklets for girls | famous women in menstrual hygiene ads | FAQ | 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 directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | shame | slapping, menstrual | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour of the former museum (video) | 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
Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.

 
The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

Modess menstrual pad ad, U.S.A.
November, 1928
Good Housekeeping magazine

Want to reconsider an ad that I posted years ago? No? Well, let's do it anyway.

Was it a mistake to feature a woman in a fur coat in Good Housekeeping magazine? How many readers could identify with her? The word "housekeeping" does not evoke cheering on the team (or horse?) wearing a calf-length expensive dead animal.

But "the average American in the 1920s became more enamored of wealth and everyday luxuries," as Wiki puts it. America was about to trip into the Great Depression - about to but not yet.

So the middle-class (or less) woman could dream of wearing a fur coat to a football game, binoculars in hand.  Or a gown to a ball. (Later, Modess did not give up on balls even as it could not mention the unmentionable.)

As you know - don't you? - competitor Kotex also created ads showing that the wealthy needed the humble menstrual pad. Menstruation levels women.

Modess appeared about 1926 (see some ads from about a year later), in America, and for a long time was the main competitor of Kotex. Eventually it was reduced to a "hospital" pad (not sold everywhere), one aimed at women, often right after having a child, who often wear a belt and pad, an outmoded technique now in most situations although recently small companies have made washable pads with belts.

Modess's maker Johnson & Johnson introduced an early American disposable pad, in 1896, Lister's Towels. European commercial disposables appeared about this time. Curads and Kotex advertised their disposables about 20 years later.

See Kotex ads from the same year.

Below: The ad measures about 8 1/4 x 11 1/4" (about 21 x 28.6 cm).
Dirt covers "try" in the subhead and the middle of the text.
Glaring through binoculars, is she cheering on her husband's
mistress as she whacks him on the head? Money brings responsibilities.

See what the company might have sent a woman asking
for the free Modess mentioned in the ad. Note the same red
cross on black and the words "so infinitely finer." Was it sticking
its tongue out at Kotex, which also used a cross, maybe
because of its origin as a bandage in World War I?
Below: What are those green things? Leaping porpoises as brooches? I ask that as a male unschooled in women's get-up.
 Below: Was the artist unhappy with the first try so she (more likely he) tried again? I searched for a candidate but couldn't find the ad's painter.

See a Modess ad from 1931, the French Modess, and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark) for teens.

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