Read an ad for Venus menstrual pads and underpants in the June 1936 The American Girl.Here are Society pads, from about the same time.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.Read a Personal Products booklet for older girls from about this time, The Periodic Cycle (1938). See similar booklets on this site.See also How shall I tell my daughter? and Personal Digest and read the whole booklet As One Girl to Another (Kotex, 1940).See a Kotex ad
advertising a Marjorie May booklet.
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Venus compressed menstrual napkins,
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Before disposable pads (which appeared in the late 19th century in the U.S.A. and in Germany and England), menstruating women found traveling troublesome. Where would they wash and dry their cotton pads? Sometimes they must have burned them - if they could afford to. (In the late 19th century an English medical journal reported about a portable menstrual pad burner.)These pads appear to be all cotton, not the cellulose of Kotex (Cellucotton). They must have been more expensive than Kotex, probably appealing to a richer clientele.(See an ad for Venus). Here are Society pads, from about the same time.) |
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I pulled the end flap out of the box, showing the instructions (to avoid standing on your head, read below). |
At least two people wrote on the the back of the box, above, at an unspecified time, probably to show a sale price - maybe well after the 1940s. |
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The Venus pad, right out of the box. Safety
pins fasten the long ends on either side of the
pad to a napkin
belt (see such a belt,
probably from the 1940s).
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.