Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and
prototype ad - January
1921 - May 1921
- July 1921
|See more 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 more 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, 1970s)
And read Lynn Peril's series about
these and similar booklets!
See more Kotex items: First ad
(1921) - ad 1928 (Sears
and Roebuck catalog) - Lee Miller ads
(first real person in amenstrual 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
|
Kotex sanitary napkin ad, November 1921,
and the First
Kotex Ad Campaign
Washing reusable
menstrual pads was a burden
for most women. A woman might soak
the pads in a bucket overnight,
and wash them the next day. They
reminded people of diapers,
who probably felt they contributed
to the subservience of women.
Albert Lasker, the advertising
genius who worked on the Kotex
campaign, told Advertising Age
magazine (15 December 1952),
"The mean
thing about the laundry always
has been the [sanitary] napkins
of women."
And Kotex menstrual pads, for
women with money, solved the
laundry problem.
But tell me, what is going
on in the picture in the ad?
Is the mistress of the house the
woman at left, and is she
striking terror in the maid,
with the feather duster, by
asking her to wash her menstrual
pads? Or is it the other way
around? (Explain THAT one!)
Visitors to the actual
museum and I had gone
around and around about this ad
for years, and I can't find a
hint in the text. Or is it -
gasp! - that I'm a guy, and just
- don't - get - it! What do you
think?
[A site
visitor sent this
interpretation in August 1999:
The woman on the right is the
mistress; she's better dressed
and is arranging flowers (a
proper upperclass duty). The one
glowering on the left is the
laundress. The mistress is
forced to do other work (like
dusting and maybe other
housework) just to keep the
laundress, whom she needs to
wash her pads. Once she switches
to Kotex, she'll no longer need
unruly, sulking laundry servants
(or maybe they won't be sulking
any longer).]
Another maid in a Kotex ad
seemed to roll
her eyes.
The Wallace Meyer archive at the
State Historical Society of
Wisconsin has a proof of this ad;
printed at the bottom of the ad is
"Copy No. 7," probably meaning
that it is the seventh ad in the
first Kotex series. Someone wrote
on the proof - was it Wallace
Meyer? - that Arthur J. Kellor
illustrated it.
|
Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and
prototype ad - January
1921 - May 1921
- July 1921
See another ad about washing pads.
Other first-campaign ads: general discussion and
prototype ad - January
1921 - May 1921
- July 1921
|See more ads
for menarche-education booklets: Marjorie
May's Twelfth Birthday (Kotex, 1933),
© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute any of the work on
this Web site in a
ny manner or medium without written
permission of the author. Please report
suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
|