Compare the American "Modess
. . . . because" ads, a Modess ad from 1928, 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
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Modess sanitary towel (napkin) ad,
Great Britain,
29 February 1936, in Woman's Weekly
Modess, probably the main competitor
of Kotex sanitary napkins in America
for decades after its creation in
1926, seems to have taken its name
from "modest," which is exactly what
this black-and-white ad expresses.
Roughly contemporary Modess ads in the
U.S. were showier (1928 and 1931) - they
might reflect the difference in
American and British temperaments.
Look at an American Modess pad
from the 1930s.
But about ten years later Modess in
America became so modest it almost
lost its tongue. The long "Modess . . . .
because" series featured
glamourous women and little ad copy -
certainly not identifying what Modess
was.
It was - blush - too modest to say.
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Americans
like me sometimes need help
in reading English: a draper
is "a dealer in cloth
and sometimes also in
clothing and dry goods"
according to the online
Merriam-Webster dictionary.
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Compare the American "Modess
. . . . because" ads, a Modess ad from 1928, the French Modess,
and the German "Freedom"
(Kimberly-Clark) for teens.
© 2005 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute 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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