When you think of hygiene during the Great Depression, you might automatically assume the widespread unemployment and poverty resulted in a generally dirty and unkempt population. However, while many people were forced to live in unsanitary conditions, in truth, the Great Depression was as much a time of struggle as it was a period of innovation for keeping clean.
During the 1930s, maintaining a clean body and home was a point of pride. With economic and social hardship all around, cleanliness was something that was relatively controllable. Anxieties about hygiene also carried over to concerns about finding work – something advertisers seized upon with gusto. The development of new products and marketing strategies aimed at cleanliness demonstrate how much people truly valued staying clean.
As far back as Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, women used tampon-like implements made out of papyrus, wool, lint, and other absorbent fibers. During the late 19th century, inserted devices were used to administer treatments to female reproductive organs but were rarely used to absorb “vaginal and uterine discharges,” much less menstrual blood. In the 1930s and 1940s, however, expanding media and academic interest in menstruation opened larger conversations about women’s hygiene. New technologies developed, many of which were intended to be cleaner and more convenient than using rags. Kotex sanitary napkins were developed to meet the needs of working, traveling, and elegant women alike during the 1920s.
Dealing with the “challenges” of menstruation advanced still further in the early 1930s. Modern tampons were created by Dr. Earle Hass. Haas developed a device made out of cotton that could be inserted with an applicator. Cotton was replaced by synthetic rayon and, in 1936, Tampax was born. Owned by Gertrude Tenderich, the Tampax Sales Corporation advertised in newspapers and magazines throughout the late 1930s.
In the 1940s, an alternative tampon hit the market: the non-applicator version branded as o.b. (an abbreviation of the German phrase ohne binde or “without napkins”) tampons.
Tampons were advertised as providing freedom to women while eliminating the “hazards, risks, embarrassment… even humiliation” of menstruation.