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The 20th century and the modern era bra

1913 Bust reducing brassiere US Patent 1156808

In 1910, Mary Phelps Jacob, a 19-year-old New York socialite, purchased a sheer evening gown for a social event. At that time, the only acceptable undergarment was a corset stiffened with whalebone. Polly found that the whalebone visibly poked out around her plunging neckline and from 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.

At the request of family and friends, she made more of her new device. When she received a request for one of her inventions from a stranger, who offered a dollar for her efforts, she realized that her device could turn into a viable business.

On November 3, 1914, the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent^[12] for the 'Backless Brassiere'. Her patent was for a device that was lightweight, soft and separated the breasts naturally. Jacobs' brassiere was an improvement, but did not in fact supply much support, and is recognized today as a breast flattener, a style that later became the rage during the Flapper era of the 1920s.

Although it was not the first bra to be commercially produced in the U.S., she was the first to use the name "brassiere" for her invention (rather than the older term "bust supporter"). While earlier patents of a related nature existed, she is sometimes credited as the modern inventor of the bra.

Polly's business did not prosper, and she sold the patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for $1,500 (or over $25,600 in today's money). Warner's manufactured the "Crosby" bra for a while, but it does not seem to have been a popular style and was eventually discontinued.^[9] The patent, later valued at $15 million, was the foundation for Warner's business. The corset was doomed, and Warner Brothers success was sealed, when in 1917 the U.S. War Industries Board asked women to stop buying corsets to free up metal for war production. This was said to have freed 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. The war also influenced social attitudes towards women and helped to liberate them from corsets. However women were already moving into the retail and clerical sectors. Thus the bra 'came out', from something ('bust girdle') discretely tucked into the back pages of women's magazines in the 1890s, to prominent display in department stores such as Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward by 1918. Advertising was now promoting shaping the bust to contemporary fashion demands, and sales began to grow.^[9]

Source from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki