Earle Haas

Dr. Earle Haas was born in 1888, graduated from the Kansas City College of Osteopathy in 1918 and spent 10 years in Colorado as a country general practitioner, then went to Denver in 1928.

He invented a flexible ring for a contraceptive diaphragm (and made $50,000 from selling the patent), sold real estate and was president of a company that manufactured antiseptics. Haas wanted to invent something better than the "rags" his wife and other women had to wear, he said, and got the idea for his tampon from a friend in California who used a sponge in the vagina to absorb menstrual flow. So he developed a plug of cotton inserted by means of two cardboard tubes; he didn't want the woman to have to touch the cotton.

After failing to get people interested in his invention (including the Johnson & Johnson company), on October 16, 1933 he finally sold the patent and trademark to a Denver businesswoman, Gertrude Tenderich, for $32,000. She started the Tampax company and was its first president. Tenderich was an ambitious German immigrant who made the first Tampax tampons at her home using a sewing machine and Dr. Haas's compression machine. Tampons based on Dr. Haas' design were first sold in the U.S. in 1936.

The London Sunday Times newspaper in 1969 named Haas one of the "1000 Makers of the Twentieth Century."

After selling the rights to the tampon, he continued with his doctor's practice and various business enterprises. He regretted later selling the rights, but was glad it was successful, and died at 96 in 1981. Up to right before his death he continued to try to improve the tampon