Mary Phelps Jacob

Mary Phelps Jacob was a New York socialite who later renamed herself Caresse Crosby, going on to become a bohemian publisher and self-styled princess in Europe.

She sold her 1914 brassiere patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for $1,500, and by her own account spent little time dwelling on the far larger sums the company later made from designs built on top of it.

Connected entry: The Modern Bra