A shower curtain launched the disposable diaper era
Marion Donovan stitched army-surplus nylon into the Boater cover and sold waterproof diapers at Saks in 1949—then sold her patent for one million dollars. Her paper disposable design flopped, yet Procter and Gamble later used her ideas for Pampers.
A diaper or nappy is absorbent underwear letting infants and incontinent wearers urinate or defecate without soiling outer clothes. Cloth versions reuse cotton, hemp, or synthetics; disposables use absorbent chemicals and are discarded. The Middle English word diaper first named a rhombic fabric pattern on white linen; by the nineteenth century sewn linen nappies fixed the modern meaning in North America while Britain kept nappy from napkin.
Nineteenth-century mothers pinned cotton squares, with Maria Allen mass-producing United States cloth diapers in 1887. Wool or rubber pants reduced leaks, though doctors once feared rubber poulticed infants' skin; poor washing and infrequent changes—not air alone—drove rash. Disposable concepts emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, including Robinsons of Chesterfield destroyable napkins and Hugo Drangel's cellulose wadding inserts.
Donovan's 1946 Boater used a shower curtain and parachute cloth, debuting at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1949 and patenting in 1951 before selling rights for one million dollars. Scottish housewife Valerie Hunter Gordon developed the two-part Paddi pad-and-garment system, patenting in 1948 and signing with Robinsons in 1949; Boots sold Paddi nationwide by 1950. Postwar mothers wanted freedom from laundry as they entered paid work.
Procter and Gamble researched disposables from 1956; Victor Mills' team trademarked Pampers, conceptualized in 1959 and launched in 1961, now exceeding ten billion dollars annual revenue. The 1980s diaper wars saw patent battles with Kimberly-Clark's Huggies. Innovations added double gussets, refastenable tapes, hourglass shapes, and superabsorbent sodium polyacrylate polymers from 1966. Modern layered construction locks urine in a core beneath breathable shells and skin-facing nonwovens.
Source: Diaper
