bra Though the first bra, a linen and lace garment that looks almost exactly like a modern bra, was discovered in an early 15th century collection from Lengberg Castle in Tyrol, Austria, there is no other evidence of any use of bras in the 1400s. In 1914, the first modern bra was patented by New York publisher, activist, and socialite Caresse Crosby (born Mary Phelps Jacob). Frustrated with a whale bone corset that kept popping through a new party dress, she created the bra from two handkerchiefs and some ribbon to create cleavage. Crosby sold bras to friends for one dollar. Soon the two of them founded the Fashion Form Brassière Company, a two-woman factory in Boston. Crosby patented the first bra as "the backless brassière" in 1914. After making a few hundred bras and some orders from department stores, she was persuaded by her husband to close the company. She sold the patent to The Warner Brothers Corset Company for US$1,500. In the next 30 years, Warner Brothers made more than US$15 million from the design. According to Cadolle Lingerie House, Herminie Cadolle, a French inventor, was the first inventor to patent the modern 'brassiere', called the "corselet-gorge", lingerie which separated the upper bra portion from the lower corset, the first step toward the modern bra. An urban legend that the brassière was invented by a man named Otto Titzling ("tit sling") who lost a lawsuit with Phillip de Brassière ("fill up the brassière") originated with the 1971 book Bust-Up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the Development of the Bra and was propagated in a comedic song from the movie Beaches. Half the patents filed for the design and manufacture of the bra were created by women. The Dresden-based German, Christine Hardt, patented the first modern brassière in 1899. Sigmund Lindauer from Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Germany, developed a brassière for mass production and patented it in 1912. It was mass-produced by Mechanische Trikotweberei Ludwig Maier und Cie. in Böblingen, Germany. In the United States, Mary Phelps Jacob received a patent in 1914 for the first brassière design that is recognized as the basis for modern bras. Mass production in the early 20th century made the garment widely available to women in the United States, England, Western Europe, and other countries influenced by western fashion. Metal shortages in World War I encouraged the end of the corset. Development of