Welcome to Period Pieces, our journey through the bizarre and beautiful cultural history of menstruation. Inspired by #throwbackthursday, we serve up our favorite ads, images, and factoids about periods throughout the ages.

[caption id="attachment_3170" align="aligncenter" width="385"]Live-your-life-unhandicapped-Kotex via Tressugar[/caption]

 

There is so much fascinating stuff going on in this ad, I barely know where to start. This is one of the first ads for a disposable pad, so there's lots of references about how much easier this disposable product is than its reusable counterparts. Granted, in those days no one had a washing machine or cute cloth pads with wings that snapped around their undergarments -- when you were on the rag, you were literally on the rag.

I'm also loving their insistence on how scientific this new invention is, and how easy it is to buy: ready-wrapped! just ask the clerk! How different things must have been back then (see also: "women of the better classes have adopted it).

It's really interesting too how they never say what the product is, but we all totally know. So tell us: do you fear losing your daintiness? at times?

About the author of this post:

tracypuhl is the owner of GladRags and is passionate about period positivity and empowering women everywhere. When she's not in the office, you might find her attempting to run a faster 10k, traveling, practicing yoga, or pointing out how cute her cats are being right now.