See ads for
Pursettes: September
1972
(letter testimonial) - August 1973
(letter testimonial) - February
1974 (cartoon story) - August 1974
(cartoon story) - October
1974 (cartoon story)
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Sanitary
Tampon Panty and box
(U.S.A., from Pursettes, with a
box of three free Pursettes
tampons inside, 1968)
Tampons, for all their virtues
(read an 1945
report about tampon pluses
and pad minuses), still sometimes
allow leakage of menstrual
discharge. Pursettes, an American
tampon
with no applicator, and a
lubricated tip to facilitate
insertion, came to the rescue with
this white panty. The company used
cartoons
and letters
directed at teenagers to sell
their tampons; women tend to stay
with the menstrual products they
use in their teens, so the
companies fought early for their
dollars.
Women used to be able to buy all sorts
(and a big
listing) of protective
underpants, aprons, etc., against
menstrual leakage when pads and
tampons worked worse than they do
today. A late example is a panty
from Kotex, sold today (2000).
It's a confession of failure. How
come we can zoom to the moon but
not . . . ? Priorities, I guess.
In 1997 Tambrands gave the
underpants to this museum as
part of an amazing
gift of 450 boxes of
tampons dating to the founding
of the Tampax company, 1936,
plus hundreds of other items,
including more underpants.
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The box lists the
components of the panty as Body:
100 percent acetate tricot;
Crotch: Olefin fiber and
plasticized acetate.
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I divided the box
to speed download.
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Probably the
original donor's hand wrote "Zayre
Discount [store], Balt[imore], Md.
[Maryland]," followed by what look
like the writer's initials and the
date, 2/15/68.
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The box - front,
above - which came inside the
panty box, above, measures 2.5" x
1.75" (about 6.4 x 4.6 cm).
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© 2000 Harry Finley. It is
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