Period Nirvana’s museum exhibit inside of our Asheville location features 100 years of menstrual product technology. The sanitary belt – an item needed to hold sanitary napkins in place before pads added adhesive glue strips in the 1970s, is part of our exhibit. Guests at our museum of a certain age always make mention of their hatred and, frankly, the trauma they associate with that belt. Younger guests have a hard time imagining how it works and if they know of its existence, always refer back to reading the original version “Are you There God, It’s Me Margaret.” That infamous scene was updated in other editions, and in the recent movie. To help people fully understand the belt we decided to put it on a mannequin out for display.
Early Sanitary Belt Design History
A look back at patents for period products through time will have you both intrigued and sometimes, aghast. Ideas for how to solve the problem plaguing womankind ranged from practical to tortuous to “clearly, invented by a man without a uterus.”
To absorb period flow you need 1. an absorbent material (cotton or muslin) and 2. close proximity to the vulva. Today, it’s hard to imagine why such a contraception existed when we can shove toilet paper or wash cloths or socks into a pair of underwear and get better results with less fuss.
What most people forget is that underwear today is very different than the undergarments of 100 years ago. Undergarments were loose fitting; sitting or even pinning a pad into loose bloomers would have been as effective as wearing nothing at all!
Thanks to fabric blends that stretch and modern tight-fitting underwear patterns, pads can now be worn attached directly to the underwear via adhesive or wrapped around the underwear and clasped using buttons or snaps.
Sanitary belts have been made of various materials, most were made of elastic or fabric/ribbon.
Available Sanitary Belt Designs
Commercially available sanitary belts can be traced back to the mid-late 19th century. At the time, advertising items for menstruation was taboo. The very earliest ads barely mention the purpose of the item and used veiled terminology.
Ladies Home Journal, 1928
Sanitary belts secured to pads using either safety pins or metal/plastic/nylon clasps. The clasps were by far the easier solution, but perhaps not as secure if the tabs pulled through them. Pins were, therefore, still an option for decades alongside belt designs with clasps, and simple belts without clasps were often less expensive.
In a book dating to 1912, a modern sanitary belt ad is seen on the opposite page of an ad for its predecessor, the sanitaroy apron. Bulkier and old fashioned, the sanitary apron was worn to protect dresses from menstrual stains and was made of rubber which was not breathable.
Sanitary belts were still used for the large postpartum pads in hospital settings as recently as the early 2000s. This, according to nurses and patients who shared their not-so-fond recollections in the comments of our sanitary belt video that reached a million views. Thankfully we now have mesh postpartum underwear.
Mary Kenner’s Sanitary Belt
A post about sanitary belts can’t go without mentioning a forgotten African American woman inventor, Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner. She filed a patent for an improved sanitary belt. While she was not the first to design or patent a sanitary napkin belt, her idea could have blossomed into something great were it not for the color of her skin and the discrimination she faced. Accounts mention that she would have filed sooner than 1954 had she not faced those barriers. As reported in a Vice story on Mary Kenner
“One day I was contacted by a company that expressed an interest in marketing my idea. I was so jubilant,” she said. “I saw houses, cars, and everything about to come my way.” A company rep drove to Kenner’s house in Washington to meet with their prospective client. “Sorry to say, when they found out I was black, their interest dropped. The representative went back to New York and informed me the company was no longer interested.”
Judging by the patent, the sanitary belt was an improved design and Kenner’s was the first product with an adhesive element intended to secure the pad and prevent chafing. Chafing and pads shifting was a major complaint at the time.
Putting The Belt on Display
For the sanitary pad, a 1930s or 1940s Kotex Wondersoft single pad was used. This is one of several pads that came with the vintage Kotex dispenser we have on view in the museum exhibit.
We picked an already tattered package to open. Inside of the paper package was a Kotex pad with long tabs and a heat sealed plastic bag with 2 pins inside – all for .05. The pins were included in each package because if you were in a pinch and had to buy a pad in public, the only way to feasibly use it was to pin it to your underwear in the event you were caught entirely offguard without your belt.
The sanitary belt chosen for display is a D’Orsay product from the 1930s. This package was also in poor condition and we have 3 total D’Orsay belts in our collection. This belt is as simple as they come, made of thin elastic bands with a tab on the front and back to pin the pad to, and a small ring on the waist for size adjustment.
Pinning the sanitary pad into the belt on the mannequin was a challenge, as shown in the video. Pinning and then pulling the pad on would have been easier, but for the mannequin pinning while on the form seemed easier. Either way, it’s hard to imagine doing this several times a day!
Common Questions About Sanitary Belts
In the comment section of our recent video this question was asked the most: “Why didn’t people just pin their sanitary napkins into their underwear instead of wearing a belt?”
Underwear as we know it today is very different than the undergarments worn when sanitary belts were first invented and weren’t tight – meaning the pads wouldn’t sit flush against the vulva and would be more likely to leak.
Belts were worn as recently as the 1970s and even into the 1980s, so people did pin the pads into these more modern and tigher fitting underwear. A reason to continue using the belt would be that repeatedly safety pinning underwear caused holes and the underwear would sag with the weight of the pad. Advances in synthetic fabric blends have helped make underwear that can fit tighter to the body and hold a pad close, which made the adhesive backed pads a more viable option as time advanced.
Another common question pertained to the safety pins – why would people buy and use belts with pins when belts with clasps were available? It’s hard to answer but the best guess would be that it was down to price or preference. Simple sanitary belts without clasps were less expensive. Yes, just like with all things, there were higher priced “luxury” sanitary belts and these feaured clasps. And pins hold well – the long tabs of the pads may have slowly pulled through clasps and loosened with movement. Pins might have been a preference for a reliable experience.
Both options were known to be uncomfortable. Chafing, slippage, pokes, pinches, sore spots, and leaks were part of the experience of wearing a sanitary napkin in a belt. Judging by the hundreds of comments from people who lived through the era of belts and napkins, the invention of adhesive backed pads was a huge step forward for women and people with periods.
Visit the Menstrual Museum inside Period Nirvana Asheville
Interested in the history of menstrual products? Visit the museum exhibit, 100 Years of Menstrual Technology, inside of Period Nirvana. Located in Asheville, NC, the exhibit displays period products from the 1930s up to present day. Several sanitary belts are on display. You can also see the oldest publicly viewable menstrual cup in any exhibit in the world, dating to the 1940s, at our location. Plan a visit.
Sources:
Coates, Lydia Trattles. Coates’ Sewing and Dress Making Manual. L. T. Coates & Co., 1912, pp. 62-63. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/coatessewingdres00coat
Eaton’s Spring and Summer Catalogue 1907. Toronto: T. Eaton Co., 1907. Page 206. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/eatonscatalogue82teat/page/206/mode/2up?q=%22Sanitary+belt%22
Tsjeng, Zing. “The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor Who Revolutionized Menstrual Pads.” VICE, 8 Mar. 2018, www.vice.com/en/article/mary-beatrice-davidson-kenner-sanitary-belt/
Kenner, Beatrice. Sanitary Belt. U.S. Patent US 2745406 A. 15 May 1956. Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US2745406A/en
Leave a Comment