Kotex ad emphasizing shame, 1992
See Kotex items: First ad (1921)
- 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
 
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Did women send washable menstrual pads to special laundries?
Newspaper evidence, 1909, U.S.A.
We know that at least some American women wore washable menstrual pads
(see three Norwegian washables from the 19th
century) in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before Kotex started
(early 1920s). Someone washed the cloth pads
and dried them, to be worn again.
But who washed them? It probably wasn't a pleasant business for
most women - see a riveting Kotex ad from 1921
- and I assumed most women washed them themselves; the rich left them to
a servant, as in the Kotex ad.
But the help-wanted ad, below, makes me wonder if some women sent them
to special companies to wash.
Did "Sanitary Towel Laundry Company" mean a company that washed
towels used to dry hands and bodies, sanitary describing the healthful process
and result, or a laundry that washed reusable menstrual pads?
In a menstrual context "sanitary towel" means a menstrual
pad, a sanitary napkin. The ads below the help-wanted ad show this usage
in America and Great Britain. (Read more words and
phrases for pads and menstruation.)
I believe the Magdalene laundries in Ireland and England washed menstrual
pads; undoubtedly other laundries did also.
If this ad means menstrual pads I wonder how common these laundries
were.
Can anyone help with this problem?
Yes, someone can! Ben Truwe e-mailed me
that his newspaper research located similar ads, including
I just reviewed a bunch of old ads for the Sanitary Towel Laundry of
Lincoln, Nebraska, and a lot of ads were like the one you have on your
web site. A few, however, instead of just looking for "girls,"
were looking for "jacket ironers," mangle (ironing machine) girls,
and girls with sewing experience. So it sounds like STL wasn't laundering
sanitary napkins.
BUT . . . the MOST compelling evidence that they weren't laundering
sanitary napkins is the fact that I just searched the phrase "sanitary
towel" through the hundreds of thousands of newspaper pages newspaperarchive.com
has indexed for the years 1908 through 1910, and the ONLY use of that phrase,
in any context, was by the Sanitary Towel Laundry in Lincoln, Nebraska.
It doesn't appear in ads, it doesn't appear in the names of other companies
in other cities who are washing sanitary napkins.
Inescapably, "sanitary towel" meant a clean towel and nothing
else in 1908 through 1910.
I again thank the kind genealogy researcher and retired teacher who
found this interesting ad!
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Below: See the second
ad; from the Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, Dec. 17,
1909.
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Below: these ads show American usage of
the term sanitary towel, the left one the year before the above help-wanted
ad.
Below left: from the Sears, Roebuck catalog
of 1908. Right: from November 21, 1921, Oakland
[California] Tribune. The apostrophe should stand between the r and s. See
more early washable pad and belt ads, and more
about America's first disposable pad, Lister's.
Bottom: English brand disposable pads ad from
a Newnes sixpenny paperback novel, about 1905. See more Southall's.
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See ads for menarche-education booklets:
Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday
(Kotex, 1933), Tampax tampons (1970, with Susan Dey),
Personal Products (1955, with Carol Lynley), and
German o.b. tampons (lower ad, 1981)
See also the booklets How
shall I tell my daughter? (Modess, various dates), Growing
up and liking it (Modess, various dates), and Marjorie
May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1928).
And read Lynn Peril's series about these and
similar booklets!
See another ad for As One Girl to Another (1942),
and the booklet itself.
© 2006 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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