Ernst Mahler and James Kimberly of the small American company Kimberly Clark, during a trip to Europe, discovered a material five times more absorbent than cotton and even less expensive to produce. They brought it to the United States, patented it, and began large-scale production. They called it Cellucotton. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the army began purchasing it and using it in military hospitals. But especially, Red Cross nurses began using it as a sanitary pad, on their own initiative. After the war, Kimberly Clark purchased the US Army’s surplus stock, and after years of research and development, began mass production of feminine hygiene products, Kotex. Initially, it was difficult to introduce the product to the market: many women were embarrassed to ask for Kotex at the store, so Kimberly Clark asked stores to leave a box where customers could leave their money without going through the checkout. Kimberly Clark is now one of the largest companies in the world.
