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The birth of feminism in the late 1960s and early 1970s featured young women burning bras as a counterpoint to young men burning their draft cards. Bra burning was a social statement. Now there’s more discussion regarding the medical merits of those demonstrations.

Ironically, it was an American woman who invented the bra around the turn of the 20th century, according to Ken L. Smith, a health educator and Breast Health Facilitator for the American Cancer Society.

Up until the beginning of the 20th century, corsets were what made women exhibit that desired hourglass figure and inadvertently pushed up the bust line for fashionable clothing of that time. The problem was, corsets messed with internal organs while shaping those hourglass figures, and their tightness resulted in women fainting easily and often.

The birth of the bra

In 1893, Marie Tucek made a “breast supporter” that looked like a modern brassiere. But, later, Mary Phelps Jacobs designed a better version and called it a brassiere. She patented it and sold the patent to a company named Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for $1,500. It caught on.

By the 1950s, teenage girls were urged to buy and use training bras to hold their breasts firmly in a desirable way and prevent sagging. But even the brassier industry admits that the only time bras prevent sagging is while wearing them.

Ken Smith suggests that using artificial breast support long enough will cause the breasts’ cup-shaped suspensory Cooper’s ligaments to atrophy, allowing the breasts to sag over time anyway. Exercises that strengthen pectoral muscles can be helpful.

It’s recommended to use a one-piece sports bra for exercising. Some women use one-piece sports bras as a healthier alternative to regular bras when not exercising.