Crosby, Caresse (1892-1970), also known as Mary Phelps Jacob, contributed to the design of the modern brassiere or bra. She was also a publisher and a patron of the arts.
Mary Phelps Jacob was born on April 20, 1892, in New York City. Her friends and family usually called her Polly. She claimed to have invented the modern bra while preparing for a ball. She noticed her heavy whalebone corset showing through her gown. Improvising, Jacob and her maid tied two handkerchiefs together with ribbons and cord. The resulting bra did not offer much support, but it suited fashions of the time. The United States Patent Office granted Jacob a 1914 patent for her “backless brassiere.” Jacob established a small manufacturing company in Boston.
Jacob married three times. Her first two husbands were wealthy businessmen from upper-class families. The first, Richard Rogers Peabody, suffered from alcoholism. Their marriage failed. In 1922, Jacob married the banker Harry Grew Crosby. The couple moved to France and lived a glamorous lifestyle. They wrote poetry and socialized with the era’s foremost artists and writers. In 1924, Harry persuaded his wife to change her first name to Caresse.
In 1927, the Crosbys created their own publishing company, Éditions Narcisse. Later known as Black Sun Press, the company printed deluxe limited editions of works by such writers as Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound of the United States, Ireland’s James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence of England, and other friends of the couple.
Harry committed suicide in 1929. Caresse continued her publishing venture alone and returned to the United States. She married her third husband, an unemployed actor named Selbert “Bert” Young, in 1937. Caresse opened a modern art gallery in Washington D.C. and established Portfolio, a magazine promoting avant-garde (experimental and unconventional) artists and authors.
Caresse divorced Bert and moved to Italy in the 1950’s. There she turned a neglected castle into an artists’ colony. She died on Jan. 24, 1970, in Rome.
