- Messages
- 54,308
"Chux" brand disposable diapers were actually on the market as early as the mid-thirties, but were not intended for everyday use: they were marketed for use while traveling, to eliminate the problem of rinsing out diapers in a Pullman washroom or in a hotel. They were inspired by the way some mothers had solved the problem on their own by home-making disposable diapers out of layers of surgical gauze and absorbent cotton.
"Chux" weren't shaped like a modern disposable -- they were flat and rectangular like a cloth diaper, and had to be pinned. But they were the ancestor of the disposable of today.
Disposables didn't become dominant until the seventies. Both my sister and I were strictly cloth-diaper babies, and my brother started in cloth and ended in disposables.
I am not sure where Chux originated but according to an interesting story (not totally confirmed), "Eastern airlines had so many complaints during the long transatlantic flights that it commissioned a project with Chicopee (J&J) to develop an efficient disposable diaper to help passengers traveling with small babies. The result was the CHUX disposable diapers, a rectangular one piece diaper first made in 1949. In 1950 Paulistrom launched a “roll diaper”, rolls of cellulose wadding inside a knitted mesh that consumers had to cut and fit into reusable panties."
It is hard to nail down who did what first because what we know of as a disposable diaper today was not quite the same back then---thnak goodness.