The First Modern Brassiere

Caresse Crosby circa 1935.

The first modern brassiere to receive a patent and gain wide acceptance was a bra invented in 191o by a 19-year-old New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob. Born on 20 April 1891 in New Rochelle, New York, "Polly" was the daughter of a prominent New England family. Her ancestry included Governor Bradford, the Plymouth Colony's first governor, and Robert Fulton, developer of the steamboat.

Polly's family was not fabulously rich, but her father had been raised, as she put it, "to ride to hounds, sail boats, and lead cotillions," and he lived high. She grew up, she later said, "in a world where only good smells existed." "What I wanted," she said of her privileged childhood, "usually came to pass." A childhood of privilege included private school, dancing school, and horse riding school. She was a rather disinterested student. One commentator writes that for the most part Polly "lived her life in dreams." (Wolff).

In 1915 Polly Jacob married Richard Rogers Peabody, son of one of the three great New England families. By the early 20th century a case could be made that the Peabodies had supplanted the Cabots and the Lodges as the most distinguished name in the area.

Up to this time, an unhealthy and painful device called a corset narrowed an adult women's waist to 13 or fewer inches. The corset is attributed to Catherine de Médicis, wife of King Henri II of France. She enforced a ban on thick waists at court attendance during the 1550s. For nearly 350 years, women's primary means of support was the corset, with laces and stays made of whalebone or metal.

From the Corset to the Brassiere

In 1875, designer Susan Taylor Converse created a garment called the “Union Under-Flannel” from woolen fabric. The garment is different to previous items as it has no-bones, eyelets, laces or pulleys. The garment was patented by manufacturers George Frost and George Phelps, but never gained much attention.

In 1889, French-born corset-maker Herminie Cadolle invented a two-part undergarment. The top half of her 1889 invention was "designed to sustain the bosom and supported by the shoulders." (The bottom half was a corset that covered only the waist and rear.) She called it the 'Well-Being' or 'Bien-être'. Introduced in Paris, the Bien-être resembled a Victorian bikini. But Cadolle's far-sighted design seems to have been kept a close secret among her select customers.

Later in 1893, Marie Tucek patented the first brassiere. Her device included separate pockets for the breasts, straps that went over the shoulder which were fastened by hook-and-eye closures. It looked very much like modern bras today, but Marie apparently failed to successfully market the patent.

Two Silk Handkerchiefs

In 191o at age 19 Mary Phelps Jacob had just purchased a sheer evening gown for one of her social events. At that time, the only acceptable undergarment was a corset stiffened with whalebone. Polly found that the whalebones visibly poked out around the plunging neckline and under the sheer fabric. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, she worked with her maid to fashion two silk handkerchiefs together with some pink ribbon and cord. The corset's reign was beginning to topple.

Polly's new undergarment complimented the new fashions introduced at the time, Family and friends almost immediately asked Polly to create brassieres for them, too. One day, she received a request for one of her contraptions from a stranger, who offered a dollar for her efforts. She knew then that this could become a viable business.

Polly was the first to patent an undergarment named 'Brassiere' derived from the old French word for 'upper arm'.

On November 3, 1914, the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the 'Backless Brassiere'. Her patent was for a device that was lightweight, soft and separated the breasts naturally. Polly christened her business with the name Caresse Crosby. While a definite improvement, her brassiere did not offer breasts a lot of support, and were more flattening than flattering. In fact, the breast flattening style was popularized by the Flapper look during the Roaring Twenties, but abruptly changed to the present breast enhancing form during the thirties and forties.

Running a business either was not enjoyable to Polly or she failed to properly market the product, for she soon sold the brassiere patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for $1,500 (or over $25,600 in today's money). Shortly afterwards, in 1917, the U.S. War Industries Board asked women to stop buying corsets to free up metal for war production. This step liberated some 28,000 tons of metal, enough to build two battleships.

It has been said that the bra took off the way it did in large part because of World War I. The Great War shook up gender roles, putting many women to work in factories and uniforms for the first time. Women needed practical, comfortable undergarments. Warner went on to earn more than fifteen million dollars from the bra patent over the next thirty years.

In the 1920s, Polly moved to Paris with her second husband. She changed her name to Caresse Crosby, the name under which the patent was granted.

In the 1930s, Warner produces the first popular all-elastic bra and bras with cup sizes, showing off a woman's curves. Warner makes an estimated $15 million off Caresse's patent.

Shortly after Polly invented the bra, The Flapper Era Flattens the Bustline.