See more Kotex items: First ad (1921; scroll to bottom of page) - ad, 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) - Lee Miller ads (first real person in a menstrual hygiene ad, 1928) - Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday (booklet for girls, 1928, Australian edition; there are many links here to Kotex items) - Preparing for Womanhood (1920s, booklet for girls; Australian edition) - 1920s booklet in Spanish showing disposal method - box from about 1969 - "Are you in the know?" ads (Kotex) (1949)(1953)(1964)(booklet, 1956) - See more ads on the Ads for Teenagers main page
The first Kotex magazine ad campaign
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
homepageMUM address & What does MUM mean? | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! | the 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, current | puberty booklets for girls and parents | religion | Religión y menstruación | your remedies for menstrual discomfort | menstrual products safety | science | Seguridad de productos para la menstruación | 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.

 
The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

"To guard against emergencies"
Kotex ad, September, 1921
The Ladies Home Journal, U.S.A.

What would YOU do if your period started during this picnic and you forgot your rag attached to a belt? Next question: Where would you keep the wet rag until you could take it home for your maid to wash? In the picnic basket?

Kotex was not the first commercial product to solve these riddles but became the most famous.

Actually, it eliminated washing and thought it answered the elimination dilemma, a problem persisting today.

The first Kotex magazine ad campaign.
Early 1920s Kotex ads for newspapers.
Display Kotex on the counter so women don't have to (blush) ask for it.
Kotex on the side of a train
Tampax gives dealers advice on how to display its tampons (1936)
Counter display for the Kotex tampon Fibs (1930s-40s)


Below: The full-page black-and-white ad measures 11 x 14" (27.9 x 35.6 cm).

Did you notice that "Kotex" are is used as a plural?

If I'm reading this conversion engine right, $0.60 in 1921 is worth
from $6.26
to $135.00 in 2013 dollars, about 50 cents a pad at the cheapest.
Even at the low end no wonder these ads pitched Kotex to the rich-looking ladies
nibbling sandwiches below or lounging about doing nothing or floating down a staircase or chastising
a maid
. (But maybe those were exactly the people who read The Ladies Home Journal.)
About 14 years later an early commercial tampon, B-ettes, cost 25 cents for 12,
around $4.24 in 2013 dollars, maybe 35 cents a 'pon.
Below: Am I wasting your time by examining her sandwich?
I spent too much time looking at the sandwich and her mouth - it's my lunch time, too - to
not ask, Is the white area below her upper lip her teeth or a
reflection off her lower lip?
And, she ate the upper corner off the
poorly cut sandwich; the lower end of the diagonal slice at right should have angled
more toward her fingernail. Maybe an inexperienced picnic participant cut it when
the cook had the morning off. But it's a beautiful drawing.
See more Kotex items: First ad (1921; scroll to bottom of page) - ad, 1928 (Sears and Roebuck catalog) -
Lee Miller ads (first real person in a menstrual hygiene ad, 1928)

© 2014 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