This is a new feature of the History Blog: occasional pieces focusing on the extraordinary lives of people you might not have heard of before.
Every morning, millions of women around the world wake up and put a bra on. It’s an everyday task, something that few probably put much thought into. But the story of the woman that invented the modern bra is simply amazing.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Mary Phelps Jacob.
Born on January 30, 1891, Mary Phelps Jacob – known as “Polly” to her family – came into a world of power and privilege. Her family were direct decedents of William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, and Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat. Although nowhere near as rich as the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts, Polly’s family nevertheless had enough money to own three large estates in New York City, Long Island and Watertown, Connecticut. But Polly grew up in an age when a family’s name was as important as their bank balance. Based on her last name, Polly was able to attend the best private schools, the most exclusive cotillions, the fanciest horse riding academies… even a garden party hosted by King George V in 1914.
In fact, it was Polly’s “coming out” party in 1910 that inspired her to create the bra. Before this, women were expected to wear uncomfortable corsets to support their busts – a social convention contrived 350 years earlier by Catherine de’ Medici, the wife of King Henry II of France. But a corset simply wouldn’t work with Polly’s choice of dress – a tight-fitting number with a plunging neckline. The corset’s whalebone stays stuck out of the top of her dress, and overall she looked like she was wearing a life jacket underneath the dress. Undaunted, Polly called in her maid, and the two of them took a pair of silk handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon and fashioned something resembling a modern bra.
Polly’s creation proved to be quite a hit with her friends and family members. But it wasn’t until a complete stranger sent Polly a dollar along with a letter begging for one of her bras that Polly realized that the bra could be a commercial success. Accordingly, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Polly the first American patent for a brassiere on November 3, 1914, and Polly went in to business under the name “Caresse Crosby”. But Polly didn’t have any interest in running a business, and she soon sold her patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut for a mere $1,500 (around $38,000 in 2018 dollars). Warner Brothers would make an estimated $15 million over the next thirty years with Polly’s patent.