Tour the former Museum
of Menstruation in my house.
Belt topics
See how women wore a belt (and in a Swedish
ad). See a modern belt
for a washable pad and a page from the 1946-47
Sears catalog showing a great variety - ad for Hickory
belts, 1920s? - Modess belts in Personal Digest
(1966)
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).
 
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Norwegian exhibit about menstruation & the company history
of the Scandinavian tampon and menstrual pad company
SCA Mølnlycke
Go to a NORWEGIAN
JOKE, then continue with the next
page of the exhibit.
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This is the creator of the exhibit, Elin Graabæk of the museum
staff, holding a knitted pad(!) and a belt.
This and the following article are from the
TBG Blad newspaper.
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"Communists in
the summer house"- wow! - and "The
visit of Aunt Red from Potsdam" are Norwegian euphemisms for
menstruation. The latter is similar to the German "Tante Rosa kommt
aus Amerika," Aunt Rose is coming from America. Someone should write
something about the choice of places unwelcome "people" come from!
Ahem, I must dispute the contention in blue, which says that "apparently
the Vestfold city museum is the very first museum in the world to have an
exhibit about [menstruation]." Apart from the permanent exhibit
at MUM, which stated in 1994, a year before this temporary exhibit, the
city museum of Frankfurt, Germany, had a large exhibit of menstrual material
in the late 1980s as part of a larger exhibit of the history of underwear,
as I know from the catalog of the exhibit in the Library of Congress. I
would guess there have been others.
Finally, the green quote
says that the museum is not noted for breaking new
territory, but it certainly did this time. Even in a liberal country
like Norway this is a bold exhibit.
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Go to a NORWEGIAN JOKE, then continue with
the next page of the exhibit
© 1998 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute any
of the work on this Web site in any manner
or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
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