See a roughly contemporary pad, Society,
and a "silent purchase" ad for Modess,
1928.
Other Modess ads: 1931,"Modess . . . . because" ads, the French
Modess, and the German "Freedom" (Kimberly-Clark)
for teens.
See a prototype of the first Kotex
ad.
 
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The perfect menstrual pad 1 (2
2a 3 4
4a 5)
"Report of Gilbreth, Inc.," to
the Johnson & Johnson company, 1 January 1927, about how
to improve the company's menstrual products, especially in competition with
Kotex pads
In the mid 1920s, R. W. Johnson, of the Johnson & Johnson company,
U.S.A., asked efficiency expert Dr. Lillian
Gilbreth to find out what women liked and disliked about menstrual
pads, belts, and the various menstrual underwear available, and gather
information to make the One Best Pad.
Later, Gilbreth became known as "the mother of modern management"
as well as of twelve children (read
her biography) sired by her husband, Frank, likewise an efficiency
expert, who died in 1924. Some of the children wrote the popular
books Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles
on Their Toes about their childhood with famous - and efficient
- parents. Hollywood made movies of the books in the late 1940s and early
1950s.
In the mid 1920s American women used Kotex
pads far more than any other commercial napkin - commercial
tampons didn't appear until the early 1930s, and menstrual cups probably in the 1930s - and Johnson wanted to find
out why. His own brands, Lister's, Nupak
and Modess, competed with dozens of brands
for the rest of the market.
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By the time of the report, 1927, commercial disposable
pads had mostly replaced washable pads
(above, a commercial washable from the Sears,
Roebuck catalog, fall 1921, which also advertised disposables.)
The ad text, above, reads, "Made of a four-ply
birdseye cloth with a piece of rubber sheeting inserted for protection.
A lasting sanitary napkin that can be thoroughly cleaned. Shipping weight,
5 ounces." Women had often made their own pads from birdseye
cloth, also used for children's diapers.
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Gilbreth gave questionnaires to college
students, including some at Smith, Wellesley, New Jersey College for Women,
Antioch, as well as to some business women and high school girls, and got
back 1037 out of 2543 distributed.
She asked them about their napkin and belt practices,
including whether or not they altered the pads, why and how, before wearing
them; how many they used; where they bought them; etc. The respondents wrote
what they liked and disliked about products and suggested improvements.
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I will cover a few topics of the report, and give
her conclusions and recommendations, many of which are valid today.
In sum, the 134-page typewritten report, with tables of statistics but
no illustrations, constitutes probably the first formal
analysis of women's attitudes about menstrual products. Up to that
point, manufacturers seemed to base their pads and belts on nineteenth-century
products - and their intuition. Lillian Gilbreth and Johnson & Johnson
changed that.
The copy of the report that I read, which might be unique, rests
in the special collections of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana,
U.S.A. Dr. Gilbreth was the first woman engineering professor at Purdue.
© 2000 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce
or distribute 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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