See Pad-n-all,
a similar pad with belt from about the same
time.
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Delicate, a menstrual pad with belt in a
tube, U.S.A., after 1943
I don't have to tell you that
women must carry menstrual
supplies with them, something hard
to do before tampons appeared in
the early 1930s (see a very early
Tampax).
But in the 1940s (or before) a
company invented a tampon-size
sanitary napkin with belt enclosed
in an innocuous-looking tube - the
child or purse snatcher or
boyfriend might think it's
lipstick - just the ticket to
conceal that time of the month, a
constant effort in American and
many other cultures. (But some
cultures advertise menstruation by
segregating women, parts of India,
for example.)
I sure
hope the victims, er, users, of
this product tried it out before
using it outside the house. I
can hear the curses now as she
struggles to unfurl the darned
thing - well, see the next page
for details. (I was not able to
get a British pad out of a tube!)
And older pads (here)
dwarf this one, making me wonder
if it did the job.
Look at the word Delicate on the
front of the box; see the enlarged
version at the top of this page
in the title head for a better
view. The letters have a greenish
area in the upper part of the
yellow. This is probably caused by
a misalignment of the printing
plates, common in run-of-the-mill
printing jobs.
See a
British pad in a tube, Lilia (1930s?) and ads for
earlier American pads in tubes in a Tourist
Set, a package of menstrual
supplies for the traveling
woman.
The Procter & Gamble
Company kindly donated Delicate
to MUM as part of a gift of
scores of old menstrual products
from its archives.
Harry Finley created the
images.
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The box measures 2
7/8" x 2 7/8" x 7/8" (about 7.3 x
7.3 x 2.2 cm)
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Left: The
paper came loose in the box,
unlike the instructions, below,
which wrapped around the tube.
Postal codes
started in 1943 (see the address
at the bottom of the page); the
woman's hairdo and clothing on the
next page suggest the 1940s as the
date of the product.
Below:
The box holds three stiff
cardboard tubes, each wrapped in
now decaying cellophane. One tube
was open when P&G sent it,
someone there probably having
opened it.
The tubes are about
2 7/8" (3.7 cm) long and a tad
less than 1" (ca. 2.5 cm) in
diameter.
The user had to
break the tube open and pull out
the pad and belt - and try to
figure out how to use it.
See the results on
the next page.
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© 2007 Harry Finley. It is
illegal to reproduce or distribute
any of the work on this Web site
in any manner or medium without
written permission of the author.
Please report suspected violations
to hfinley@mum.org
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