See Pad-n-all, a similar pad with belt from about the same time.
HOMEPAGE
Menstrual napkin belts and pads from the 1902 and 1908 Sears, Roebuck catalogs (U.S.A.)
Actual belts in the museum Underpants (directory of all on this site):
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? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
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, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents |
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
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.

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, just the ticket to conceal that time of the month, a vital task in American and many other cultures. (But some cultures advertise menstruation by segregating women, parts of India, for example.)

I sure hoped the victims, er, users, of this product tried it out before using it outside the house. I can hear the curses now as she struggled to unfurl the darned thing - well, see the next page for details. And older pads (here) dwarf this one, making me wonder if it did the job.

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.

 

Above: These one-sheet instructions wrapped around the tube (see the previous page). I enlarged the back of the page, directly above, so you could read it - thus the difference in sizes. And the front side, at left, DOES have a bluish tint.
Left: This is what the woman pulled out of the tube. I had trouble stetching and fluffing it, maybe because the cylinder is 60-or-so years old. I have nothing but compassion for the user, especially in an emergency.
After stretching and fluffing, see what you get, below.

 

The pad is short but thick. The cord stretches a bit and seems be the same material as the pad covering. You can't see the hole in the back tab, but the user snaked the cord through the holes and put that baby on. (See why the back tabs on sanitary napkins were longer than the front ones.) Being a woman is complicated.
NEXT: an ad, 1953. Delicate box and tube - See Pad-n-all, a similar pad with belt from about the same time.