The Modern Bra
Mary Phelps Jacob really was first to popularize it -- but the exact design she patented flopped, and the version that made millions wasn't actually hers.
In 1913, 19-year-old New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob was getting dressed for a debutante ball and hated everything about what she had to wear underneath her gown. With her maid's help, she sewed two silk handkerchiefs and a ribbon into something soft enough to disappear under the dress.
She patented the 'Backless Brassiere' in November 1914. It wasn't the first bra-like patent on record -- Marie Tucek had already patented a garment with separate breast pockets and shoulder straps back in 1893 -- but Jacob's is the one credited with kicking off the modern era, mostly because World War I arrived soon after and metal-boned corsets quietly disappeared from wardrobes.
Here's the part that rarely makes it into the retelling: Jacob's own design didn't succeed. She sold the patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for $1,500, who manufactured her exact design for a while, then discontinued it. The $15 million Warner eventually earned came from what they built on top of the patent afterward -- elastic, adjustable straps, cup sizing -- features Jacob had no part in.
Mary Phelps Jacob's patented design is not the bra that made Warner millions -- her original construction flopped commercially, and the profitable version was built by others using her patent only as a legal starting point.