New this week: Trade
card with girl and cat (perhaps around 1900), sewing
kit (date unknown) and the booklet Stretching
Your Dollar (perhaps 1930s), all from the Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company
- The 20th Century Song Book (1904, The Chattanooga
Medicine Company, maker of Wine of Cardui and other patent medicines) -
Venus sanitary napkins and underpants ad (June 1936,
The American Girl magazine) - Ethnic jokes from
The American Girl magazine (1936) - Kotex ad (March
1942, Ladies Home Journal) - Second real person
in a menstrual products ad? (Kotex, October 1928) - "Modess
. . . . because" ad (1948) - Modess ad
(1956) with "Modess . . . . because" ad incorporated into it -
Menstrual humor
News and Letters Appear Next Week
I got carried away with the New this week,
above, and ran out of time.
The BBC wants to hear from you if your
cycle is a blessing, makes you
creative, if you have experience with menstrual
seclusion, or know about current
research !
Here's your chance to say how you feel about
menstruation!
Please, may I post a letter on your letter page?
I'm researching a documentary for the BBC [British
Broadcasting Corporation] about menstruation -
myths and facts and blessing or curse.
I have much information about the curse and predjudice but I
am finding scant information about the blessing! I was thrilled
to find medical information linking surgery for breast cancer and the menstrual
cycle and the New Scientist report about differing medication levels required
during the 28-day cycle, and the research about eating requirements differing
during the cycle etc., but I want to hear from women
who have evidence of the cycle as a blessing, for example, artists, writers,
etc., who are at their most creative whilst menstruating.
I also want to meet women who practice menstrual
seclusion, as with menstrual huts of
the past [and of the present; women still use menstrual
huts].
And anything and everything to do with research into menstruation.
Next week I am interviewing Mr Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle
who wrote the first book on menstruation that offered positive information,
The Wise Wound, 1978. I am very excited about
asking many questions resulting from the book. If
you have any questions for them pertaining to the book or their second
book, Alchemy for Women, about the dream cycle corresponding to the menstrual
cycle, I would be delighted to forward them to them on your behalf.
They are not on the net so any questions would have to have addresses!
Thank you so much for this glorious Web site [many thanks to you for
saying that!] and I look forward to hearing from visitors to your site.
Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a
Public Official For Its Board of Directors
Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive
support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve
this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or
appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.
What public official out there
will support a museum for the worldwide culture of
women's health and menstruation?
Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law,
finances and fund raising to the board.
Do You Have Irregular Menses?
If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome
[and here's a support association for it].
Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham
and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked
me to tell you that
Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome
(PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of
reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility
and is linked to diabetes.
Learn more about current
research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's
Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University
- or contact Jane Newman.
If you have fewer than six
periods a year, you may be eligible to participate
in the study!
New this week: Trade
card with girl and cat (perhaps around 1900), sewing
kit (date unknown) and the booklet Stretching
Your Dollar (perhaps 1930s), Lydia Pinkham Medicine Company - The Twentieth Century Song Book (1904, The Chattanooga
Medicine Company, maker of Wine of Cardui and other patent medicines) -
Venus sanitary napkins and underpants ad (June 1936,
The American Girl magazine) - Ethnic jokes from
The American Girl magazine (1936) - Kotex ad (March
1942, Ladies Home Journal) - Second real person
in a menstrual products ad? (Kotex, October 1928) - "Modess
. . . . because" ad (1948) - Modess ad
(1956) with "Modess . . . . because" ad incorporated into it -
Menstrual humor
© 1999 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