Updated 6 December; next scheduled update 1 March 2018, but sometimes updated throughout the week.

"Time dos fly too fast"
Lady Elizabeth Delaval
in her poem "Upon the Singing of a Lark" in Dr Sara Read's "Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England," a fount of learning

This web site is "odd, funny and well researched" - The New York Times

This museum collection is "[U]nrivaled. . . . [T]he best material culture collection on menstruation in the world."
- Menstruation: A Cultural History
(Howie, Shail, eds.) This museum, MUM, has thousands of advertisements and products concerning menstruation from around the world.

This museum Web site is "a treasure trove of information." -
Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer Revolution in American Business, by Thomas Heinrich and Bob Batchelor.

Listen (unfortuntely the link is dead) to MUM director Harry Finley carry on about men and menstruation, the MUM museum in his basement, toxic shock, etc., on the Keeper menstrual cup site. No, they didn't pay me.

ABOUT MUM (MUseum of Menstruation):
"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.

"Consider how Surg. Gen. Koop changed the country! . . . Carry on!" Judge Giles S. Rich (retired), United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Washington, D. C. (from a letter to me)

Comments from TV, online, radio and other media about this museum.

Three listeners' comments (more) from my half-hour interview with Howard Stern (here):
° "Get a life, creep."
° "[I] am quite familiar with the obstacles to a frank and intelligent discussion of menstruation." (Nancy Freedman, author of Everything You Must Know About Tampons, 1981)
° "I was just listening to your interview with Howard Stern. You handled yourself very well with him. He lambastes just about anyone with a peculiar interest, but you had him very much in check. I was amazed!"

Google declares this site "adult,"not something a family could look at together and withdraws the ads it had placed here for 8 years (December 2011). I need permission slips from Google employees' mothers before they peek at this site. NO FAKE SIGNATURES OR I'LL SEND YOU TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE!!

"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.

"Terrifically diverse" - The Independent on Sunday (London, England)

"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 the museum in The Prince George's Journal, Maryland, U.S.A.

"One of the best on the Internet" - Britannica.com 

"Ecco perché Harry Finley ne sa più della tua Mamma" - Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition)

"This gem of a website is a virtual repository for everything you ever
wanted to know about women's periods." - New Scientist magazine (United Kingdom)

"More interesting than you might think. . . . lively." The V Book: A Doctor's Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health, by Elizabeth G. Stewart, M.D., of Harvard medical school and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston.
More media on MUM

The New York Times:
This site is "odd, funny and well researched"
Judge Giles S. Rich:
"Consider how Surg. Gen. Koop changed the country! Carry on!"
Former official of the
Society for Menstrual Cycle Research:
"You're a brave man."
Woman visitor looking at the museum archives:
"You will be sacrificed."
More

Putin grabs Trump by the --! Well, see the Danish cartoon at the bottom of the page.
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Two more contributions to Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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American contribution to words and expressions about menstruation: Charlie Brown is in town
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Hemingway sipped gin from a menstrual cup
flying with his wife on a Chinese airline in the 1940s. I wonder if it was hers. She - Martha Gellhorn - recounted this in her book Travels with Myself and Another. The only American cup at the time I know of is that of Leona Chalmers, introduced around 1937. Maybe the flight attendant offered a Chinese one if there was such a thing.

Just the story to break the ice with that stranger you've always been interested in!
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From The Onion:
"Mortified Tampax CEO Bursts Into Tears And Runs Out Of Boardroom After Tampon Falls Out Of Briefcase"
Look at the similar ad for the defunct Pursettes tampon almost 45 years ago.
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Emily Dickinson warns Hugh Hefner:
"Playmates at threescore and ten
Are such a scarcity–"

So ends the poet's 1882 near-death masterpiece
My wars are laid away in Book[let]s.
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And, can you connect Emily Dickinson with
"feminine hygiene"?
Was I surprised?! When browsing Thomas Johnson's
 edition of her poems I found in She went as quiet as the Dew at the end of the 6th line
"summer's Eve."
I imagined a poetry-loving marketer at the hygiene company writing this, a college English major forced to serve Mammon instead of Art and wanting to
insert high culture into low orifices.
(More on the topic; more from the poet).
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A Girl Gets Her Period And Is Banished To The Shed: #15Girls
Story through
National Public Radio

Read what this MUM site says about menstrual huts.
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"Nepali 'menstruation hut' ritual claims life of teenage girl"
CNN story
Read what this MUM site says about menstrual huts.
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This museum gets closer to going public!

Period Equity in New York City offered to permanently house and display this museum's collection. The organization, "a law and policy institute dedicated to advancing menstrual access, equity and safety in the U.S.," is fund raising for its headquarters and the museum.

And a recent show at the Parsons School of Design in New York City incorporated three items from MUM for a show on industrial design aimed at women.

Europeans in past decades have seen shows of menstrual history in Norway and Germany (items from exhibition catalog in Frankfurt and Lorsch).

Read more about the future of the museum. See the first public exhibit of this museum.
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I'm taking a 1-year break from regularly updating this Web site
aside from an item now and then. Many projects call me! See you on March 1, 2018.
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In Mexico, red underwear conferring "special powers" during periods (from a site visitor):

"I came across this article recently Red underwear in Mexico during menstruation: and thought I would mention what I was told (around 2008) by a woman in her 30’s who came from a rural area of Mexico. She said the women in her village wore red underwear when they were menstruating. She was taught that the red underwear had 'special  powers' to protect them during these times. I asked if she, too, believed in their powers. Her answer was yes. She said she still wears red underwear during menstruation for this reason."
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WHERE, Mr. Trump?
And mansplaining the truth.
Yes, it happens.
Tampax ad, 1997
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If I ever get this museum in the public again, you'll be able to sit inside a menstrual hut.
In the meantime, read the New York Times's
In Nepal, a Monthly
Exile for Women
and look at this museum's menstrual hut page,
which has a much earlier article about a menstrual hut,
also in Nepal.
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See an X-rated tampon ad!!
OK, OK, it's not but Tampax made an ad for Italians
hard to imagine in America.
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Help students turn water hyacinths into menstrual pads

We are a group of university students from Bangladesh, wanting to revolutionize society as it is using the idea of producing biodegradable sanitary pads made out of water hyacinth. We are currently participating in a business competition, whereby we are required to help restore refugee rights and provide them with employment/a stable source of income. We want to use this opportunity to produce these water hyacinth pads, thus providing the refugees with essential rights to sanitation and hygiene (along with proper public health education) and also providing them with a source of income by employing them in the extraction, production, and logistics services, while also helping the environment (water hyacinth on its own is an invasive species which clogs water bodies, kills marine life and emits greenhouse gases, but when processed into our good it becomes a biodegradable necessity). In order to implement our plan and actually take our project further, we need your help and advice. If you are able and willing to help, please reply as soon as possible at
mashiyat.rahman (at) live.com
You can also contact me at +8801744211444. Your cooperation in this matter will be highly appreciated. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Warm regards,

Mashiyat Rahman

BRAC University, Bangladesh
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Winging it in Germany for the first time:
Freedom Brevia Plus panty pad ad, 1994
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How bad were tampons and pads in 1942?
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When did the Japanese government
allow women to skip work when they
were menstruating? How come?
A course paper by Hiromi Mizuno, graded by
eminent feminist philosopher
Dr. Sandra Lee Bartky,
who died recently at age 81.
I adapted a design on a Japanese lacquer writing box to create the picture.
The box, at the Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art And Culture, is from about 1850-1900 ................................................................

How did Japanese society regard menstruation throughout its history?
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"What you did for us, all women on the planet, is really, really wonderful! I send you thousands of hugs, Sara"
Mail from an Italian woman answering
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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"Take my hand, I'm a stranger in paradise ..."
Um, actually, mademoiselle just fell skating wearing
a French Freedom menstrual pad in the 1970s.
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What's so funny?
Pads? Tampons?
2 ads for Freedom, Germany, 1991
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CREMATION?
And a new sanitary towel, er, pad?
In, um, 1880?
Dr. Galabin and Southall's towels.
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A bow tie just for you?
Ad for Kotex Freedom, France, 1984
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See this museum's first way of reaching a wide audience:
Its newsletter Catamenia, 3 issues, mid 1990s
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What I Learned from the Museum of Menstruation,

and an Announcement

by Harry Finley, creator and curator of this museum


The woman on the phone called to make an appointment to visit the museum.

Along with her nine-year-old daughter, she hoped to bring two of her daughter's friends staying with the family.
(continued)

Virginity and Tampax:
Ads, U.S.A., 1990-91
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One site visitor, and a chance reading of a Danish
newspaper provided two quotes to think about.
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Mimosept promotes new way of adhering
its pads into panties
Ad, Germany, 1970s
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A Muslim woman writes about periods and Islam
and her attitude toward stopping hers.
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A restaurant review??
Mm, no, a Dutch ad for Kotex, 2000!!
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Kathy & Mo's Menstrual Mirth
A review by Marisa Guillardo
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"[I]n Kenya, one in ten of the 15 year old girls told us that they had engaged in sex in order to get money to buy pads. These girls have no money, no power."
Read The Guardian story, which also discusses menstrual cups and the pitfalls of ignorance:
"A study by the Canadian organisation in Nairobi revealed that 80% of girls had no idea what their period was before they started....  'I ... think that women are tired of feeling ashamed of their periods and are speaking out more often.' ”
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Mirrors, mirrors, on ...
Kotex ad, October 1923
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A contribution to
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
"I hate needles, but when I found out Depo-Provera stopped periods, I not only demanded it from my gynecologist, I injected myself whenever I didn't have the $30 she charged to do it for me."
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Coyness for Carefree tampons
gate io, 1969
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Gatsby and dark and stormy night?
Well, not really.
Dreams, though.
Dr. Pierce's early 20th century
What Your Neighbors Say Dream Book
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Read the just-published Washington Post article about this museum.
A good job! But contrary to what the article suggests my intention is to either again create a museum or find a suitable place for the archives. Preferably create another museum. Read more here. See the original museum.
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"[W]hat I would LOVE is to get a week off every month, from cooking, cleaning, and working, b/c I am 'unclean.'"
A contribution to Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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New expressions for menstruation from Canada:
Experiencing technical difficulties, technically difficult, Muffy is sick
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Huge ad for Always Slender for Teens,
1987
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Are you confused? This picture proves a point
with the
Libresse ad, March 2016, Netherlands
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Can you get a blood sample without sticking your skin?
You know the answer: of course.
Read the story about using future tampons to diagnose
endometriosis, for just one example. (This is not new: the story missed at least one early example of using tampons to collect suspicious cells: the Draghi Detection Tampon that Tampax patented in 1959 to find cervical cancer.) The article mentions Lillian Gilbreth and her
fabulous report that asked WOMEN what they wanted
in menstrual containment products. Men ruled the roost
in menstrual products for decades; look at the Tampax board of directors in 1949 and at the Kotex board in 1947.
And in general did men bash women involved in the
advertising industry? Is Donald Trump interesting?

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You can get FREE reproductions of
elegant Modess ads!
Um, er, COULD get free ones.
Four Modess in-store cards offering
these reproductions, 1957-1958.
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While putting the museum archive in order I found this exchange
between Tamara Slayton and myself (Harry Finley) 2 years before this
museum existed.

The Art of Menstruation:
Menstrual Igloo by
Australian artist Olivia Inwood
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A German company refits its panty pad.
Ria, 1992

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Nana - the name of a French menstrual pad - can mean loose women.
Funny, the German Camelia pad is tied to a flower worn by a prostitute.
And we wonder why Europeans make fun of Americans for their prudery?
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If you boogie, do it till dawn with Always!
Dutch ad, 2015
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Tampax uses 2 pages to convince British women
gate.io, Tampax, 1990
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But what do you think about the plastic applicator?
Ad for the Compak tampon, from Tampax, 1990
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Tampax from the beginning?
Yes says a German girl.
Ad, 1988
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Tampax ad with um, er, OK OK, she's naked,
France, 1991
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Friend Larry W. Bryant has written and posted a petition for your signature to request Congress to investigate the menstrual products industry for possible contamination of its products at
http://www.petition2congress.com/18901/investigate-menstrual-products-industrys-infusion-probable-carcin
Larry worked with me at the Pentagon decades ago, where he listened to my ideas for the physical museum. He's the godfather of this site: in 1996 he suggested I create it. He's boosted my morale since the beginning.
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On Martin Luther's birthday, consider this (English translation follows):

Ja, det er [Luther's] Storhed, at han var bange. En nerveløs raa Børste,
en vild Landsknægstjael, en Fanatiker med Galskab luende i
Øjene, sagtens træde op imod Kejser og Pave, men det er
Stordaad af en Mand, der skælver af Frygt.
(From "Ved Reformationsjubilæet," (1936) in Himmel og Jord - Heaven and Earth - writings by Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor, writer, and playwright opposed to the Nazi occupation of Denmark
and murdered and dumped in a ditch in 1944.)
My translation:
Yes, that's Luther's greatness, that he was afraid. A nerveless crude fellow, a wild country bumpkin, a fanatic crazy in his eyes, can easily rise up against emperor and pope, but it's a great thing for a man
who shakes with fear.
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Would you be embarrassed?
Serena menstrual pad ad,
and a clothing ad, both German, 1982, showing the
same model.
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Recent MUM appearances in media (more media):
The Sean Moncrieff Show (Newstalk, radio interview, Dublin, Ireland, October 2, 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?" (The Atlantic online, Oct., 2015))

"How One Man Ran the World's Only Menstruation Museum from His Basement." (VICE Media, September 28, 2015)
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Do you think a deck of cards would convince
stores to sell Modess menstrual pads?
Deck of cards, possibly 1960s.
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Does menstruation make her female?
Read
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
And her mother performed

"When I was twelve years old, my step mother did brujería [Spanish for witchcraft] on me. She took my underwear to a black magic witch doctor, who then buried it in a cemetery. She put a ghost on me to make me go insane." MORE (October 2015 contribution).

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"‘Normal Barbie’ can now wear menstrual pads"

Story about a menstrual pad kit from the Washington Post.

See pads and tampons (and a douche apparatus!) made for a doll house.

And see a doll, washable pads (but no tampons) and other material made to teach girls in rural India about menstruation.
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Stewardesses on the Kotex Magic Carpet pad
Ad, Kotex, 1959
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"Menstruation Innovation: Lessons from India"
By Jennifer Weiss-Wolf,  September 1, 2015
New York Times
More from and about India here and here and here and here.

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What's this?
Without a doubt, it would be easier to figure out with more shadow.
But this is a Kotex without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt ad!
1940s-1950s.
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Eyes away from that zone!!
Zonite douche ad, 1932
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What a mysterious mess, huh?
This Always ad will clarify it!

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Flo makes poor girls' lives easier
with "a kit that allows girls to wash, dry and
carry reusable sanitary pads."
More on reusable pads.
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Dutch Kotex ad, 2000

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American Kotex ad, 1950.

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Ever wonder what the average person ate or how she got their clothing
in an important era of English - and world - history? And,
of course, what about menstruation and medicine? (There's a hint that a
special group of women used tampons, just as stage
performers [and here] did before commercial tampons.)
Dr Read's book supplies in an easy, matter-of-fact way - that is,
non-academic way - the countless nuts
and bolts of these women's lives, often telling what came even earlier.
And of some men's lives, too.
Amazon sells only a Kindle edition ($10.99) although
Dr Read sent me a hardbound copy with a cover price of
$39.95 (or £19.99). Google advertises an ebook for $9.99.
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Dear Harry,
I wondered if you might be interested in putting a link to a song and video I created 10 months ago, on your Museum of Menstruation website? It's called 'Let it flow' and is a menstrual positive version of Disney's 'Let it go' from the very popular Frozen film. It's not my finest singing ever, but I believe the lyrics are strong and the video powerful. It's proved to be quite popular on YouTube with almost 3,500 views. You can read the lyrics here http://redwisdom.co.uk/let-it-flow/
Best wishes,
Karin www.redwisdom.co.uk
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Two more pad disposal bags, from Arizona
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A contribution to
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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A Dutch girl chooses o.b tampons,
probably the first native European 'pon.
Ad, 2000.
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Feeling alienated?
Dutch ad, 1998

"Bloody Hell: Does Religion Punish Women for Menstruating?"
Read the article at Vice.

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So infinitely sadder, er, finer
A Nupak ad revisited, 1927.
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A contribution to
Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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Is she feminine?
Ad for Fems "feminine napkin," 1959
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Are you looking at the stars? She sees Kotex blue.
Kotex ad, June, 1929
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THINX about it!
See/buy the pad-in-panty back ups.
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Fashion? Menstrual pads?
And a glove by the best?
Modess pad ad from 1951.
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A woman replies to a researcher's question (11 items below) about free flow:

"I do know this via a close Japanese friend.
She told me that in the days when women wore kimono they did not wear underwear. So what did they do? They held it in until they went to the toilet and then let the blood out. She said it can be learned with practice."
But look at ads for Japanese menstrual clothing in the late 19th to
20th centuries when women wore kimonos.

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Nothing Modes(s)t about this user:
Take a relook at a Modess ad
from 1928.
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Do you have a flair for the end?
o.b. ad from Belgium, around 2000
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From "This Is My Brain on PMS"