See more Hartmann disposable pad ads from
the 19th century.
See other early disposable menstrual pad (towels) ads from the U.K:
Southall, Mosana
 
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THE MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH
An early - the earliest? - multinational menstrual napkin: Hartmann's,
and disposable!
Women could buy the first widely successful
American disposable menstrual pad in 1921 - Kotex.
The Kimberly-Clark Company made bandages from wood
pulp for American soldiers in the First World War. Nurses in France
used these bandages for menstrual pads, which they liked because they were
very absorbent, and they were cheap enough to throw away.
But Kotex was not the first disposable pad.
In America Curads (which sells bandages today) advertised a disposable
pad in Vogue magazine at least by 1920 (and later), and Johnson and
Johnson made Lister's Towels in 1896, which lasted until at least the mid-1920s.
Also in this last decade of the 19th century a disposable
pad appeared, Hartmann's, possibly made in German (see ad below),
decades before the successful introduction of Camelia, the first widely
successful disposable pad in Germany, which is still sold today (just as
Kotex was the first really successful pad in the U.S.A and is still sold
today).
But ads for a Hartmann's pad also appeared in America (below) and in
the Harrod's of London catalog for 1895 ("Hartmann's Hygienic Towelettes
for Ladies"), making Hartmann possibly the first
multinational pad maker. It's unlikely that
there would be more than one pad maker named Hartmann in the 1890s.
Interesting too is the kind of company that made Mulpa: a bandage
factory, just as Kimberly-Clark was. And bandages are grouped with
menstrual pads at the Patent Office in Washington.
Look how small the pads were, if we can trust the advertising, much smaller
than the average pad of the day.
Lister's Towels was probably the first American
disposable.
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A woman in the United Kingdom generously e-mailed me this scan of a
Hartmann's ad for "Towelettes" for women (lowest ad); the British
still call menstrual napkins towels. Note SAVE WASHING, which indicates
to me that it's disposable. The ad comes from "The Nurse's Dictionary
of Medical Terms and Nursing Treatment Compiled for the Use of Nurses,"
London: The Scientific Press. Internal evidence indicates its date as 1900.
Wood wool seems to be wood shavings, a common absorbent of the time.
The patent for menstrual suspenders here also
mentions wood wool. But a writer sent me this:
Hi..... I've been reading your fantastic site,
and I noticed your explanation of "wood wool" on the page that
has the ad for Hartmann's "sanitary wood-wool sheets." My husband
is British, and I'm almost certain that "wood wool" is not shavings,
but rayon. The
British call "wool" anything that looks like cotton (i.e., cotton
balls are called "cotton wool"). And rayon (or viscose, as it
is called in Britain) has been manufactured since the 1890s from wood--cellulose.
It is MUCH more absorbent than cotton, and for this reason it has been
used in disposable "feminine hygiene products" since their earliest
inception: rayon products leak a lot less, apparently, than cotton ones
(although I've read that rayon tampons can leach chemicals into a woman's
body more than cotton products, especially organic cotton ones).
Just thought I'd mention this. I really doubt
wood shavings would have been used in these pads--the British would never
have called wood shavings "wool".
--Jennifer Matesa
author of Navel-Gazing:
The Days and Nights of a Mother in the Making
(Random House, 2001)
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German ad for Hartmann's disposable pad, 1890s. My translation
is,
Hartmann's Mulpa Ladies' Bandage
(legally protected), singly made in pocket size! Each pack of six costs
1 Mark. Indispensable for traveling! Available in all appropriate stores.
Paul Hartmann Bandage Factory, Heidenheim a. Br. [Heidenheim an der Brenz,
a fact kindly supplied by a German site visitor. And the company exists
today.]
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The WWs ad appeared in the August and October issues, 1896,
of the (American) Woman's World and Jenness Miller Monthly.
This ad is a copy of a copy of the original, thus the
quality, reproduced from
"Menstrual technology in the United States, 1854 to 1921," by
Laura Klosterman Kidd, 1994 (Ph.D. dissertation).
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See more Hartmann
disposable pad ads from the 19th century.
See other early disposable menstrual pad (towels)
ads from the U.K: Southall, Mosana
Washable pads - Menstrual
sponge - Swedish advertisement for a belt
and pad and adhesive pad
Suspenders for holding pads (U.S.A., 19th
century)
© 2006 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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