Reviews

As far as I'm concerned, this is the best cultural history of menstruation of twentieth-century America. You'll learn (as I did) how the Kotex makers struggled over its box design for years and why that was important. And why Americans had trouble accepting tampons. And read a good history of how men and women have increasingly been able to talk more openly about periods. And how those Kotex and similar booklets evolved... C'mon, don't turn your eyes away from the section of sex during menstruation with comments from actual people!
What a nice combination of seldom-reported pre-twentieth-century history and details of how women transitioned into modern America!
        -- Harry Finley, director,
        Museum of Menstruation

Freidenfelds makes several worthy contributions to the scholarly literature. The most important of these is the rich and detailed evidence she provides about the ways in which ordinary men and women from several social groups experienced and viewed menstruation. She argues convincingly that experts and ordinary people together gave rise to the menstrual practices and beliefs that emerged and dominated in the twentieth century."

– Crista DeLuzio, author of Female Adolescence in American Scientific Thought, 1830–1930

"Freidenfelds argues that innovations in menstrual management would not have been possible without the expansion of middle—class values and lifestyle expectations... Recommended especially for readers in gender studies." 

        --- Library Journal

"None who read this will fail to appreciate the sheer power of suggestion that marketing creates... Today's 'modern' women are more open about getting their periods, but for the less comfortable among us, the bold-faced title, The Modern Period, suggests a history book and thus lends itself to being read comfortably in public places with nary an old-fashioned blush." 

        -- Internet Review of Books

Future Events

March 2010
 
UCLA, March 1, 
    Bunche 5288 at 4pm
"Making Miscarriage: Technologies of Early Pregnancy Loss"

U.C. Berkeley, March 3,
     4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
    370 Dwinelle Hall
"Making Miscarriage: Technologies of Early Pregnancy Loss"

Past Events

May 2009
Wellesley College, Punch's Alley

"Reading Period Period Reading"