The Tampon: Patent, Crisis, and a Century of Contested Design

The modern tampon was patented in 1929 by a Colorado doctor named Earle Haas, sold four years later to a businesswoman named Gertrude Tendrich for $32,000, and transformed by the 1950s into a product used by millions. An African American inventor named Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner proposed a significant improvement in the same era and was rejected by every investor she approached, explicitly because of her race. In 1980, a brand of superabsorbent tampon manufactured by Procter and Gamble was linked to dozens of deaths from toxic shock syndrome and pulled from shelves. Each of these events reveals something about how medical products for women moved through commercial and regulatory systems — and how race, gender, and corporate incentives shaped what women were actually offered.

This article covers the history of the modern applicator tampon, the inventors and investors who built the market, the public health crisis that restructured it, and the current landscape of menstrual health products. It is educational and historical. It does not constitute medical advice.

What a Tampon Is and How It Works

A tampon is a cylinder of compressed absorbent material — typically cotton, rayon, or a blend — designed to be inserted into the vagina during menstruation to absorb menstrual fluid before it exits the body. The word derives from the French "tampon," meaning a plug or stopper, and the concept of using an internal plug to manage menstrual flow is documented across multiple ancient cultures, though the materials and insertion methods varied widely.

Source: History of Tampons — Aunt Flow

The modern applicator tampon works through compression and expansion. The absorbent material — cotton or rayon — is compressed into a small cylinder, often around 1 cm in diameter, that fits inside a cardboard or plastic tube applicator. When inserted and the inner applicator tube is pushed, the compressed tampon is deposited in the vaginal canal. Body temperature and the presence of moisture cause the compressed fibers to expand, creating a seal that captures menstrual fluid. A string attached to the tampon extends outside the body for removal.

The absorbency of a tampon depends on the fiber density and composition. Rayon, derived from cellulose, absorbs more fluid per gram than cotton because of its finer fiber structure. This efficiency advantage drove manufacturers toward higher rayon content in the 1970s, which contributed directly to the toxic shock syndrome crisis a decade later.

Source: Rely and Toxic Shock Syndrome: A Technological Health Crisis — PMC/NCBI

Earle Haas and the 1929 Patent

Dr. Earle Cleveland Haas was a physician from Boulder, Colorado. In 1929, inspired by a friend's account of using a sponge internally during menstruation, he designed a tampon inserted via two telescoping cardboard tubes — a design that allowed insertion without requiring the user to touch the absorbent material, which Haas considered important for hygiene and user comfort.

Source: Earle Haas — Wikipedia

Haas received US Patent No. 1,926,900 on September 12, 1933, for his "catamenial device" — catamenial being the clinical term for relating to menstruation. The patent described the compressed cotton cylinder with an attached removal cord and the cardboard applicator mechanism that is still recognizable in most commercial tampons today.

Source: History of Tampax — Tampax

Haas attempted to market his device commercially but lacked the capital and business infrastructure to build a consumer product company. In October 1933, he sold the patent and the associated trademark to Gertrude Tendrich, a Denver businesswoman, for $32,000 — a sum representing approximately $725,000 in 2024 dollars. Tendrich founded the Tampax Sales Corporation (later Tampax Incorporated) and began manufacturing and marketing the product, initially from a modest workshop in Denver.

Source: The Big Story of the Little Tampon — Mme L'Ovary

Tampax's early marketing faced a significant cultural barrier: discussing menstruation in any public forum was heavily stigmatized in 1930s America. Tendrich's team worked around this by marketing directly to women through women's magazines, using clinical language, and emphasizing hygienic and practical advantages. Sales grew slowly through the late 1930s, accelerated during World War II as women entered the workforce in large numbers and the practical advantages of tampons over sanitary pads became more salient, and expanded steadily through the 1950s and 1960s.

Source: Tampon Timeline: History and Applicators — Trendix

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner: The Inventor the Market Refused

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was born on May 17, 1912, in Monroe, North Carolina. She was the holder of five patents — the most of any Black woman in US history at the time of her death in 2006 — and her inventions included improvements to the bathroom tissue holder, a walker with an attached bag, and the device for which she is most historically relevant: an improved sanitary belt with a moisture-proof, built-in napkin pocket.

Source: Mary Kenner — Wikipedia

Kenner conceived her sanitary belt design in the 1920s, as a teenager, but could not afford to patent it. In the decades that followed, she worked other jobs while continuing to develop her invention. By the early 1950s, she had refined the design: an adjustable belt with a built-in moisture-proof pocket that held the menstrual pad more securely and reduced the risk of leakage and staining. This was a meaningful improvement over the standard sanitary belts of the era, which relied on external attachment and provided less reliable protection.

Source: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner — Lemelson MIT

When Kenner finally filed for her patent and sought a commercial partner to manufacture and distribute the product, the Sonn-Nap-Pack Company expressed interest. After learning she was Black, the company ended all contact. The same experience was repeated with other potential partners. The consequence was devastating: Kenner's patent expired before she could monetize it, entering the public domain and allowing manufacturers to incorporate her design without compensation or acknowledgment.

Source: The Forgotten Black Woman Inventor — Vice

Kenner received her first patent in 1956 and her second in 1957, covering variations of the sanitary belt design. She received three more patents between 1976 and 1987 for unrelated household inventions. She made no significant money from any of them. Her story has been recovered in recent years as part of a broader historical reassessment of Black inventors who were systematically excluded from commercial benefit from their own work.

Source: Black History Series: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner — DK Superior Clerk

The fact worth sitting with: Between 1956 and 1987, Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner received five patents — more than any Black woman in US history at the time — and made no significant money from any of them. The Sonn-Nap-Pack Company rejected her product after learning she was Black. The patent expired.

A Timeline of the Modern Tampon

Year	Event
1929	Earle Haas designs the applicator tampon
1933	Haas receives US Patent 1,926,900; sells patent to Gertrude Tendrich for $32,000
1933	Tendrich founds Tampax Sales Corporation in Denver
1940s	WWII accelerates tampon adoption as women enter workforce
1956–1957	Mary Kenner patents sanitary belt improvements; rejected by manufacturers due to race
1969	US FDA begins classifying tampons as medical devices requiring safety standards
1975	Procter and Gamble launches Rely tampon, using superabsorbent synthetic fibers
1978–1980	CDC begins tracking epidemic of tampon-associated toxic shock syndrome cases
September 1980	Procter and Gamble recalls Rely tampon following CDC report
1982	FDA mandates absorbency labeling standards for tampons
1990s	Organic cotton tampon market emerges as consumer alternative
2000s	Menstrual cup and period underwear begin significant market growth
2020s	Multiple countries and US states abolish "tampon tax" (sales tax on menstrual products)

The Toxic Shock Syndrome Crisis (1980)

The Rely tampon was introduced by Procter and Gamble in 1975 after extensive development and consumer testing. It used a combination of carboxymethylcellulose and compressed polyester foam beads — synthetic superabsorbent materials that could absorb significantly more fluid per gram than the cotton-rayon blends in competing products. The "rely on us" marketing positioned it as offering superior protection.

Source: Rely (tampon) — Wikipedia

As early as 1975, clinicians were observing unusual clusters of a severe illness characterized by high fever, low blood pressure, a sunburn-like rash, and rapid progression to multi-organ failure. By 1978 and 1979, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had begun epidemiological surveillance of what was being called toxic shock syndrome (TSS), linked to Staphylococcus aureus bacterial toxin production.

Source: Rely and Toxic Shock Syndrome — PMC/NCBI

The critical epidemiological finding, published in 1980, was that TSS cases were significantly more common among menstruating women using tampons — and specifically that Rely was associated with TSS at a higher rate than any other brand. The precise mechanism was an interaction between the synthetic superabsorbent materials and the bacterial ecology of the vaginal environment: the highly absorbent synthetic fibers changed the oxygen content and moisture distribution in ways that favored growth of toxin-producing Staphylococcus aureus strains.

Source: Toxic Shock Syndrome, Tampons and Laboratory Standard-Setting — CMAJ

On September 18, 1980, CDC and FDA representatives met with Procter and Gamble officials and presented data showing Rely was disproportionately associated with TSS cases. Four days later, on September 22, 1980, Procter and Gamble recalled Rely. The company maintained publicly that the decision was precautionary and that the causal link to Rely specifically was not definitively established. Internal company communications later revealed in litigation showed that company officials had discussed the TSS association internally before the public recall.

Source: Witness: Procter and Gamble Balked at Ending Tampon Sales — UPI Archives

The recall and subsequent CDC guidance — recommending that women who wanted to reduce TSS risk stop using tampons — had an immediate public health effect. TSS cases dropped sharply after September 1980. From 1979 to 1983, over 2,200 cases of tampon-related TSS were reported to the CDC. The mortality rate from TSS in that period was approximately 5%.

Source: History of Tampons — Aunt Flow

The FDA's regulatory response was to require absorbency labeling on tampon packaging — a standardized system using terms from "light" to "ultra" to indicate absorbency — and to mandate that manufacturers use only specific approved materials in tampon construction. The synthetic polyester foam used in Rely was effectively removed from commercial tampon production.

Patent Disputes and Market Consolidation

The tampon market from the 1930s through the 1980s was characterized by gradual consolidation and licensing disputes over applicator designs, fiber processing methods, and absorbency formulations.

Source: The History of the Tampon — Lil-Lets

Tampax defended its applicator design patents aggressively through the 1940s and 1950s, maintaining market dominance in the United States. International competitors — particularly Kotex (Kimberly-Clark) and O.B. (a German brand introduced in 1950, without an applicator) — competed primarily on non-applicator designs in European markets where applicators were less standard.

The modern tampon market is dominated by a small number of corporations. Procter and Gamble's Tampax brand (acquired in 1997 through Tampax's merger with P&G) and Edgewell Personal Care's Playtex and Carefree brands hold the majority of the US market. The 1997 P&G acquisition of Tampax was notable precisely because it gave the company that had been forced to withdraw Rely from the market in 1980 the dominant position in the category it had injured.

Source: Tampax 80 Years — DoitinParis

Unintended Consequences: The Organic Cotton Movement and Period Poverty

The TSS crisis did not kill the tampon market, but it permanently changed how consumers related to tampon materials. The awareness that synthetic fibers in tampons had contributed to illness created demand for all-cotton products, which a small number of brands began supplying in the 1990s.

Source: The History of Tampons — Hankering for History

The organic cotton tampon market — brands like Natracare (founded 1989 in the UK) and LOLA (founded 2015 in the US) — grew out of both the TSS-driven concern about materials and a broader consumer trend toward transparency in personal care products. These brands compete partly on verified organic certification and ingredient transparency, areas where the major conventional tampon manufacturers were historically opaque.

The tampon also became a focal point for policy debates about period poverty — the lack of access to menstrual products among low-income individuals — and the "tampon tax," which in most US states and many countries classified menstrual products as non-essential luxury goods subject to sales tax, while exempting products like prescription medication, grocery staples, or (in some jurisdictions) items like golf club memberships.

Source: Period Tax Abolition — Policy Tracking

As of 2026, more than 20 US states have abolished the tampon tax. The UK abolished it in 2021. Several European countries have moved menstrual products to zero or reduced VAT rates. The policy argument centers on the classification of a medically necessary product as a luxury — a framing that critics argue reflects the historical absence of women from the legislative bodies that established the original tax codes.

Where the Tampon Stands Today

The menstrual product market in 2026 is more fragmented than at any point in its history. The applicator tampon remains the dominant product in the United States and Canada. In much of Europe, non-applicator tampons (including o.b.-style digital tampons inserted without a device) are more common. Menstrual cups — reusable silicone or rubber cups that collect rather than absorb menstrual fluid — have grown significantly since the 2010s, particularly among younger users and in markets with strong sustainability awareness.

Source: Menstrual Cup Growth — Period Market Analysis

Period underwear — absorbent garments that replace disposable products entirely — has become a significant product category since approximately 2015. Brands like Thinx (founded 2013) and Modibodi (founded 2013 in Australia) have built substantial markets. These products are marketed primarily on environmental grounds (reusable, producing no disposable waste) and on accessibility grounds (no insertion required).

The broader shift reflects two forces. The first is environmental: the average person who menstruates uses between 5,000 and 15,000 disposable menstrual products in their lifetime, generating significant landfill and plastic waste. Reusable alternatives eliminate most of this. The second is commercial: the menstrual product market was controlled for decades by a small number of large corporations, and the direct-to-consumer model of new brands has allowed faster product innovation and more direct consumer feedback loops.

The tampon itself has not changed fundamentally since the 1980s-era material reforms. The Haas applicator design of 1929, modified to use approved cotton-rayon blends and standardized absorbency labeling, is the baseline product sold today. What has changed is the context around it: more regulatory scrutiny, more transparency requirements, more competition from alternative products, and a broader public willingness to discuss menstrual health in terms that were taboo for most of the product's commercial history.

FAQs

Q: Who invented the modern tampon? A: Dr. Earle Cleveland Haas, a physician from Boulder, Colorado, designed the applicator tampon in 1929 and received US Patent 1,926,900 in 1933. He sold the patent and trademark to businesswoman Gertrude Tendrich in October 1933 for $32,000. Tendrich founded the Tampax Sales Corporation, which became the dominant tampon brand in the United States.

Q: What was Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner's contribution to menstrual health? A: Kenner designed an improved sanitary belt with a built-in moisture-proof napkin pocket that provided more secure and reliable protection than existing designs. She conceived the design in the 1920s, patented it in the 1950s, and sought commercial partners — all of whom rejected her after learning she was Black. Her patent expired without commercial benefit to her.

Q: What caused the toxic shock syndrome crisis of 1980? A: TSS is caused by toxins produced by certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Research found that the synthetic superabsorbent fibers in Procter and Gamble's Rely tampon — carboxymethylcellulose and polyester foam beads — altered the vaginal environment in ways that promoted growth of TSS-causing bacteria. Rely was associated with a disproportionate share of TSS cases and was recalled on September 22, 1980.

Q: Are modern tampons safe to use? A: Major health agencies including the FDA, CDC, and WHO consider tampons made with approved materials to be safe for use according to their labeled instructions, including changing them every 4 to 8 hours and using the lowest absorbency appropriate for menstrual flow. The materials that contributed to the 1980 TSS crisis (synthetic polyester foam, certain superabsorbent fibers) were removed from approved tampon manufacturing following the recall and subsequent FDA regulation. Users with specific concerns about materials should consult a healthcare provider.

Q: What is the tampon tax and where has it been abolished? A: The tampon tax is a sales or value-added tax applied to menstrual products in jurisdictions that classify them as non-essential or luxury goods. As of 2026, more than 20 US states have abolished it. The United Kingdom abolished its tampon tax in January 2021. Several European Union countries have reduced or eliminated VAT on menstrual products, with others in the process of doing so.

Q: What are the main alternatives to tampons? A: The primary alternatives in current commercial use are: sanitary pads (external, disposable), menstrual cups (internal, reusable silicone or rubber), menstrual discs (internal, disposable or reusable), and period underwear (external, absorbent garments). Each has different use cases, environmental footprints, and comfort profiles. None of the alternatives are appropriate for all users in all situations, which is why the disposable tampon market remains substantial despite the growth of alternatives.

The Takeaway

The tampon's history runs from a Colorado doctor's practical inspiration in 1929 through a Black inventor's rejected patent in the 1950s, a corporate safety crisis in 1980, and a regulatory and cultural reckoning that continues today. What each chapter has in common is the same underlying dynamic: decisions about products designed for women's bodies were made primarily by men, corporations, and regulatory bodies with limited representation of the users those products served. The quality of those decisions varied accordingly. The current diversity of menstrual health products — in material, design, price, and environmental impact — reflects what happens when that market opens to more voices and more competition.

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