A Visit From Auntie

Pieces of cloth, called "Granny Rags," made from old sheets, pillowcases or other surplus material, then folded and pinned into underwear, served the average woman for years before the advent of commercially made disposable pads. Sears, Robuck sold sanitary aprons in their catalog for those with the money to buy them. Rags were washed after each use, hung out to dry, and used over and over. When odor became an issue, the remedy was to boil the rags 5-10 minutes to get rid of the problem. Women travelers either took their cloth pads home to wash them or burned them in the fireplace. England had special portable burners in the 1890's specifically to burn menstrual pads.

Tampon-like materials have been around since ancient times. Hippocrates wrote of their usage. Egyptians probably used grass or papyrus as tampons. An interesting fact is that the letters "O.B." in modern-day OB Tampons means ohne binde or "without a pad."

Timeline for important developments of disposable pads and tampons:

• 1890 - could buy disposable pads - "Lister's Towel" by Johnson & Johnson
• late 1920s-early 1930s - 1st commercial tampons
• 1920 - Curads disposable
• 1921 - Kotex disposable
• 1970 - adhesive pads
• 1996 - menstrual cup - first popular model after several unsuccessful products

Kotex pads (cotton-texture pad) came from bandages made in WWI for American soldiers in France by Kimberly-Clark. American nurses tried the bandages and liked them. These sold well after women were allowed to put money in a container on the store counters without speaking to a clerk. They then selected their boxes and took them home.

Other brand names for menstrual products included Fax, Fibs, Holly-Pax, Moderne Women, Nappons, Nunap, Slim-Pax, Tampas, and Wix. See pictures of these products at the Museum of Menstruation.

Attitudes about menstruation varied greatly. One way of dealing with it was to put women in seclusion in special menstrual huts. These are still in use today in some cultures.

The ability to bleed and not die equated to control of life powers in some religions. In goddess worship, a woman's menses determines the status of her power in the maiden, mother and crone figures. Menopausal women are sometimes revered and looked to for a wealth of knowledge and experience.

The Roman author, Pliny, in his Natural History wrote that a woman can turn wine sour, cause seeds to be sterile, wither grafts, cause garden plants to become parched and fruit to fall from a tree she sits under.

Jewish tradition regards

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