Early tampon stock, 1916, at MUM

Did Tampax menstrual tampons have a little-known predecessor?

Tampax tampons made history by allowing women to insert tampons into their vaginas with an applicator - and they might have been the first tampons designed for menstruation (more here).

But were they really the first with an applicator - or the first menstrual tampons? The Tampax history, Small Wonder, claims that Dr. Earle Haas created the Tampax in the late 1920s and early thirties after seeing the problems his wife had with menstrual pads. (Read genius adman Albert Lasker's anecdote about women not willing to buy the early Kotex.) The Denver osteopath graduated from the Kansas College of Osteopathy in 1918 and practiced in rural Colorado, moving to Denver in 1928. He was interested in business opportunities and spent much time working on his tampon.

Did he know of the company below?

In late 2006 I received an image of a stock certificate - below - from a man in Colorado who found it in some belongings he inherited. He's related to the person who owned the stock (and he's embarrassed about the whole topic!). As you see, the company called itself The American Tampon & Applicator Co. The stock is signed and dated 1916, the seal 1914.

Physicians traditionally used cotton tampons - the Tampax history calls them makeshift tampons, implying that they were created on the spot - to absorb fluids from wounds and to apply medication. A poster from World War I, below the stock certificate, shows such a tampon at the upper right. Women often volunteered to make such medical dressings - applications? - for the troops in Europe.

But the woman who has contributed many items to MUM through her access to genealogy data bases examined the certificate and wrote me the following:

This stock certificate is fascinating! I was not able to find anything about the company, nor could I narrow down F. W. Kaiser by just the initials because there were too many options. (I would need his brother's name or something in order to find out more about him) But I was able to find out about the other two men, see attached census.

In 1910 Augustus A. Ellis lives in Denver Co. with his wife Edith. He is a physician in general practice. He is English-Canadian, emigrated from Canada in 1890. By 1920 he is deceased as Edith is widowed but still living in Denver. This may have caused the demise of the company together with the cotton shortage caused by WWI.

In 1910 William T. Child is also in Denver and is an architect. He appears on the Denver census from 1900 until 1930, which is the latest census available to the public so I can't go any further. The only other thing of note is his neighbor is also a physician. Since this certificate is only 100 of 100,000 shares it would be interesting to know who some of the other investors might be, plus I am wondering if Wm Child's contribution may have been the design of an applicator. It isn't possible to tell if it was medical or menstrual from this but I can tell you that all the research I have done about medical tampons only one referred to an applicator and it was a description of a wooden stick to wrap the cotton around until you formed a tampon the size of a cigarette and that was to put medicine on to place in the nose, so not something I think you would include in the company name.

The other thing that is fascinating is it is Denver! So you have to wonder if this was the design that was later patented. Did the company fold and was it up for grabs? Was the stock sold when Dr. Ellis died? . . . I have more questions than answers.

It may help to simply put this information on your site and maybe someone from Dr. Ellis or Mr. Child's family will see it. Otherwise, contacting a librarian in Denver who may be able to look up something on the architect, since he was there so many years he must have designed some of the historic buildings. I think it would make a great newspaper article if you could get the interest of a reporter there who would have the access to local records and that is what you would need.

I am fascinated!

But it's possible "applicator" referred to items separate from tampons, maybe other devices to apply medication. But maybe not.

In any case it looks as though there was a company that intended to make commercial tampons, whether for menstruation or for medical use. Did it ever?

Below: A stock certificate for a tampon - and applicator - company in the same town the inventor of the Tampax tampon - and applicator - lived and practiced. Tampax tampons (is this the first one?) earned their fame by combining with an applicator, unlike other early American 'pons like Wix and fax and Tux (see all the tampons on MUM).

Below: The poster, typical for WWI posters in its beauty, shows items volunteers often made for soldiers. Look at the tampon in the upper right corner, which is maybe a piece of cloth wrapped around cotton and closed with string around a knot at upper left; medical people probably used it to apply medication or soak up fluids from wounds.

See more Tampax items: See Tampax bulletins from the early 1950s - Read Dr. Dickinson's study of the advantages of tampons over pads. See Dutch Tampax ads from 1938 (and here, virtually identical to a contemporary American ad) American ad from August 1965 - nudity in an ad: May 1992 (United Kingdom) - a sign advertising Tampax during World War II - the original patent - an instruction sheet from the 1930s

copyright 2006 Harry Finley

Did Tampax menstrual tampons have a little-known predecessor?