HOMEPAGE
CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Some MUM site links:
HOMEPAGE |
MUM address & What does MUM mean? |
Email the museum |
Privacy on this site |
Who runs this museum?? |
Amazing women! |
Art of menstruation (and ancient art of menstruation) |
Artists (non-menstrual) |
Asbestos |
Belts |
Bidets |
Birth control and religion |
Birth control drugs, old |
Birth control douche & sponges |
Founder bio |
Bly, Nellie |
MUM board |
Books: menstruation & menopause (& reviews) |
Cats |
Company booklets for girls (mostly) directory |
Contraception and religion |
Contraceptive drugs, old |
Contraceptive douche & sponges |
Costumes |
Menstrual cups |
Cup usage |
Dispensers |
Douches, pain, sprays |
Essay directory |
Examination, gynecological (pelvic) (short history) |
Extraction |
Facts-of-life booklets for girls |
Famous women in menstrual hygiene ads |
FAQ |
Feminine napkin, towel, pad directory |
Founder/director biography |
Gynecological topics
Masturbation |
Media coverage of MUM |
Menarche booklets for girls and parents |
Miscellaneous |
Museum future |
Norwegian menstruation exhibit |
Odor |
Olor |
Pad, towel, napkin directory |
Patent medicine |
Poetry directory |
Products, some current |
Puberty booklets for girls and parents|
Religion |
Religión y menstruación |
Your remedies for menstrual discomfort |
Menstrual products safety |
Sanitary napkin, towel, pad directory |
Seguridad de productos para la menstruación |
Science |
Shame |
Slapping, menstrual |
Sponges |
Synchrony |
Tampon directory |
Early tampons |
Teen ads directory |
Tour of the former museum (video) |
Towel, pad, sanitary napkin directory |
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 |
Read 10 years (1996-2006) of articles and Letters to Your MUM on this site.

The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health

Ads for menstrual pad holders
Sears, Roebuck catalog, probably late 1930s-early 1940s

Sometime at the end of the 1930s or early 1940s the American company Sears, Roebuck printed these offerings in the middle of page 709 in the "notions" section, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defining notions as "small useful items," which they certainly were and are.

Panties and shields directory.
Pad, towel, napkin directory
I thank the anonymous donor of the scan!

Below: This is the whole page, or what's's left of it, in a Sears, Roebuck catalog from the late 1930s
or early 1940s. You see the middle section next
,  having already carefully
examined and thought about the top section several weeks ago. Er, right?

Below: As promised, the middle section of the page. Oxidation discolored it.

Wikipedia writes this about the faintly orange color tea rose (written tearose below), a new one to your MUM:
"This color is popular in interior design for painting bedrooms, especially among women."

Every one but two of these items is tearose. The exceptions are white.

"NUVO"'s appearance is right out of the art déco style book, which helps date this page.

"Simplox" is too close to "SimPLOPS" for comfort but it's the key to "locks," showing that the wearer allegedly
locked the pad to the belt, not pinned it
. Pins often came with belts (see Lastex). Tampax and other tampons
famously assured women that they wouldn't have to use pins with its discharge absorber.
See the lock enlarged below the large page.

And see another "lox," this one assuring users the thing won't fall out of her vagina.
Below: The Simplox "lock" enlarged. It's a shame the smallest words aren't decipherable.
All of these devices endured for decades in modified form. See more belts, panties and shields.

© 2012 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