Hey ladies, I just finished an excellent book called Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, by Susan Strasser (Owl Books, 1999), and in light of menstrual cups being so popular amongst Mustachian gals and my Zero-Waste Home people, I thought I would share some interesting excerpts from a chapter about the rise of disposable-goods market in the 1920s:
"Commercial sanitary napkins had been available for decades, but they were by no means universal. Many women continued to fold linen or cotton cloth into sanitary pads, a traditional product of the bricoleur sensibility, constructed at home and often from scraps. Some purchased fabric for the purpose, especially a textured material called 'birdseye' that was also used for diapers. Others selected cloth from the rag bag. They pinned these homemade pads into their underwear or held them to their bodies with belts and suspenders; they soaked soiled napkins, washed the blood out, and reused them. Some women who could afford it concocted homemade disposable pads instead, from cheesecloth, gauze, and surgical cotton.
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Widespread use of disposable pads did not begin until Kimberly-Clark introduced Kotex in 1920. It was fabricated from cellucotton, a material the company had developed for bandages during World War I...at least one historian suggests that Kimberly-Clark was left at the end of the war with warehouses of the stuff and developed the product to exploit the surplus.
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In 1924, the company moved the advertising account for its now successful product to the well-known Lord & Thomas agency, headed by Albert Lasker. According to his biographer, Lasker personally courted Kimberly-Clark, telling the inventor of cellucotton, 'The products that I like to advertise most are those that are only used once!' " (pp. 162-163)