Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and prototype ad - January 1921 - May 1921 - July 1921
|See more 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, 1981)

See more 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)

See also the booklets How shall I tell my daughter? (Modess, various dates), Growing up and liking it (Modess, various dates), and Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1928).

And read Lynn Peril's series about these and similar booklets!

See more Kotex items: First ad (1921) - ad 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Lee Miller ads (first real person in amenstrual hygiene ad, 1928) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many links here to Kotex items) - Preparing for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls; Australian edition) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal method - box from about 1969 - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page

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.

• http://point.lycos.com/categories/

• http://womenshealth.miningco.com/mbody.htm

• director.htm

Kotex sanitary napkin ad, November 1921, and the First Kotex Ad Campaign

Washing reusable menstrual pads was a burden for most women. A woman might soak the pads in a bucket overnight, and wash them the next day. They reminded people of diapers, who probably felt they contributed to the subservience of women.

Albert Lasker, the advertising genius who worked on the Kotex campaign, told Advertising Age magazine (15 December 1952),
"The mean thing about the laundry always has been the [sanitary] napkins of women."

And Kotex menstrual pads, for women with money, solved the laundry problem.

But tell me, what is going on in the picture in the ad? Is the mistress of the house the woman at left, and is she striking terror in the maid, with the feather duster, by asking her to wash her menstrual pads? Or is it the other way around? (Explain THAT one!) Visitors to the actual museum and I had gone around and around about this ad for years, and I can't find a hint in the text. Or is it - gasp! - that I'm a guy, and just - don't - get - it! What do you think?
[A site visitor sent this interpretation in August 1999: The woman on the right is the mistress; she's better dressed and is arranging flowers (a proper upperclass duty). The one glowering on the left is the laundress. The mistress is forced to do other work (like dusting and maybe other housework) just to keep the laundress, whom she needs to wash her pads. Once she switches to Kotex, she'll no longer need unruly, sulking laundry servants (or maybe they won't be sulking any longer).]

Another maid in a Kotex ad seemed to roll her eyes.

The Wallace Meyer archive at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin has a proof of this ad; printed at the bottom of the ad is "Copy No. 7," probably meaning that it is the seventh ad in the first Kotex series. Someone wrote on the proof - was it Wallace Meyer? - that Arthur J. Kellor illustrated it.

Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and prototype ad - January 1921 - May 1921 - July 1921

See another ad about washing pads. Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and prototype ad - January 1921 - May 1921 - July 1921
|See more ads for menarche-education booklets: Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1933),

© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any of the work on this Web site in a
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