Jewish Invention Myths: The Bra
Our next jewish invention myth is the quintessential piece of women’s clothing in the twentieth as well as the twenty-first centuries: the brassiere or bra.
Perhaps predictably jews have sought to claim that they invented the bra with ‘MNews’ asserting that:
‘Ida Rosenthal – Bra
Dressmaker Ida Rosenthal gave women of her time a bra the way we know it today: a bodice with two cup-shaped pieces linked with a continuous elastic band and with elastic straps.’ (1)
Typically, this is weasel words since while it is true that Ida Rosenthal created the idea of modern bra sizing and then created a series of bras with different general sizes for women in 1922. (2) She most certainly did not invent either the concept of the bra – which dates back to ancient Greece and is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad – or the modern bra, which is generally agreed to be the creation of French women Herminie Cadolle who filed for and was granted her patent in 1898 (3) after inventing the first bra in 1889. (4)
The backless bra as well as the first modern bra that would be readily recognizable as a bra rather than the modified short semi-corset bra invented Cadolle was invented in 1914 by New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacobs (also known as Caresse Crosby) (5) and no Jacobs wasn’t jewish but rather from old English Puritan and Dutch stock. (6)
So no, the brassiere or bra isn’t a jewish invention at all.
References
(1) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions
(2) Jane Farrell-Beck, Colleen Gau, 2002, ‘Uplift: The Bra in America’, 1st Edition, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, p. 41
(3) https://www.colbert-innovation.eu/en/history-books/invention-of-the-bra/
(4) https://frenchglimpses.com/2022/02/23/the-french-feminist-activist-who-invented-the-bra/; https://www.insidehook.com/culture/100-years-brassieres-inside-historical-evolution-bra
(5) https://www.insidehook.com/culture/100-years-brassieres-inside-historical-evolution-bra
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caresse_Crosby#Early_life_and_education