Replies

Good call! 🧻 My late mother came of age during WWII, IOW, she was born just before and grew up during the Great Depression. Employment for women and girls skyrocketed during the war, and she told me (and believe me, I hadn't asked) that the first thing that girls her age bought when they got their first payday was women's sanitary napkins. Prior to that, the method used was old cloth (literally rags), which then had to be cleaned for reuse. So, sorry about the visual.

“the first things girls her age bought”

You read how our ancestors grew up with no toilet paper until they got a Sears Roebuck catalog. Few article talk about how our female ancestors had to make do with no sanitary material. Apparently they used torn old sheets or any kind of cotton material. They would wash them and then lay them out in the son while the men were out working in the fields.

Few think about it but for most people in the 19th century the world worked pretty much exactly as it did in the 9th century if you got rid of the warlords, plagues and kings. You had a plow, you raised your animals, you harvested and sold etc. The 20th century took us from horse and buggies to the moon. And along with that tech - radio, TV, airplanes, computers, etc - came the small things that really impacted peoples lives. Vaccines (the real ones), accessible cameras like the Brownie and the polaroid made it so we all had pictures of everyone in our lives, etc.

But nobody talks about stuff like athlete's foot powder or adhesive bandages, pr disposable diapers or zippers, paperback novels, tea bags, washing machines, effective insect repellents, sun screen. or, yes, feminine hygiene products. But boy can you imagine living a world where they didn't exist? 120 years ago every adult could imagine that world, because they grew up in it and were still living in it.