Read Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday Booklet, Canada, 1932,
with folder and envelope - Marjorie May Learns About Life (1936) - Facts About Menstruation that every Woman should know (1936) - Read most of a 1928 Australian edition of Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday -
Marjorie May, three booklets, 1935 main page
See a Teacher's kit (complete, early 1950s, Personal Products Corp., U.S.A.) and A Teaching Guide for Menstrual Hygiene (cover, 1962, Personal Products Corp., U.S.A.)
Read Lynn Peril's series about these and similar booklets! And see the covers of the booklets How shall I tell my daughter? and Personal Digest; read the whole booklet As One Girl to Another (Kotex, 1940).
See a Kotex ad advertising a Marjorie May booklet. See many more similar booklets.
See a Modess True or False? ad in The American Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
DIRECTORY of all topics (See also the SEARCH ENGINE, bottom of page.)
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
homepage | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM 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.

Tampax Satin Learner's Kit (for menstruation), 2001, in
three languages (English, French, Spanish)
Trousse de l'étudiante, Estuche de Aprendizaje
Coupon - Bon - Cupón

Companies (and other organizations) making menstrual products sometimes produced, and produce, literature for women and girls - and boys, for sex education - to explain menstruation, menarche, "the facts of life," and company products.

As far as I know the first booklets appeared in the 1920s, at least in America (read an early Kotex booklet). Professor Joan Brumberg, of Cornell University, has written about how the teaching of the facts of menstruation passed from the family in the early 19th century to the schools and then to the companies, which sent its information to the schools. And girls who start with the product supplied by a company in school seldom change their brand. So it's an important step for companies to interest the schools in their teaching material.

In the U.S.A., schools started using kits containing booklets, pads and then tampons from companies probably in the 1940s, and more recently accompanied by videos. Because of people's concerns about girls losing their virginity and for other reasons, which the booklet here talks about (and dismisses), certain groups of customers often shunned tampons - Catholics, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, and Hispanics and Asians. Read a 1940s report about these concerns (and others) and see a Tampax ad about virginity and tampons. And see a very early Tampax tampon.

An interesting difference between this kit and pre-1980 kits is the booklet's explanation of toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a disease associated with tampons since the 1980s although it also occurs in many places outside the vagina. But read even earlier concerns about tampons and disease (in the form of Rely tampons) in these newspaper articles from 1975-76.

 

 

 The coupon, on glossy paper, measures 4.87 x 2.5" (about 12.5 x 6.4 cm).

END
Instruction booklet: covers & 1-2 3-6 7-10 11-14 15-18 19-22 23-26 français 27-30 31-34 35-38 39-42 43-46 47-50
español 51-54 55-58 59-62 63-66 67-70 | Alldays pantiliners | Tampax tampons | Coupon | Box 1 2 -
Read Marjorie May's Twelfth Birthday Booklet, Canada, 1932, and see a Teacher's kit (complete, early 1950s, U.S.A.)

Copyright 2006 Harry Finley