See a Norwegian exhibit about menstruation.
See special panties for menstruation.
Washable pads and panties:
See nineteenth-century Norwegian washable pads - See contemporary washable pads - Women sometimes wore washable pads with a sanitary apron
Belt topics
See how women wore a belt (and in a Swedish ad). See a modern belt for a washable pad and a page from the 1946-47 Sears catalog showing a great variety - ad for Hickory belts, 1920s? - Modess belts in Personal Digest (1966)
What did European women use in the past for menstruation?
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? | 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

As early as the 1890s Germans, the British, and Americans could buy disposable menstrual pads. Johnson & Johnson made the American pad, Lister's Towel. Dr. Lister was the great English proponent of antiseptic surgery.

Curads (see words), which makes bandages today, advertised a disposable sanitary napkin at least as early as 1920 (left, a full page in Vogue magazine), but it was left to Kotex (the word was created from COTten-like TEXture) to finally make a widely sold disposable pad for menstruation, in this case made of cellulose (wood pulp).

 

In its first ad, in January 1921, (right; read words and read about the first Kotex ad campaign), the company explained the menstrual pad's origin as a bandage for soldiers in World War. American nurses in France tried it as a menstrual napkin, liked it, and well-to-do women made another step toward freedom; it wasn't cheap.

But the new sanitary napkin only sold well after women were allowed to put money into a container without speaking to a clerk, and to take a box from a stack on the counter.That was the brilliant idea of the ad man Albert Lasker, for whom the Lasker Awards in medicine are named.

 

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