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The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

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Advertisement for X Bazin, a depilatory powder by Hall & Ruckel. Features a women smiling with her hands stretched to the sky.
Advertisement for a depilatory powder named X Bazin (1915).

Magazine advertisements begin to push for white women to remove their underarm hair.

1914

BEAU
Advertisement for a depilatory powder named X Bazin (1915).

A massive underarm hair removal advertising campaign emerges and strengthens over the next several years. The initial language is subtle and does not directly assign beliefs about "appropriate" gender to hair removal. As the years pass, the advertisements will more explicitly distinguish between a "right" and an "ugly" way to "be feminine."