Undergarment Boudreaux showed the world that an American woman could establish and run a company, and she also caused a revolution in the underwear industry. In 1913, a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob created the first modern brassiere by tying two handkerchiefs together with ribbon. Jacob's original intention was to cover the whalebone sticking out of her corset, which was visible through her sheer dress. Jacob began making brassieres for her family and friends, and news of the garment soon spread by word of mouth. By 1914, Jacob had a patent for her design and was marketing it throughout
Austin Phelps of 1848 he moved his family to Andover, Massachusetts where he became professor of sacred rhetoric and homiletics at Andover Theological Seminary. In 1869 he was selected as president of Andover, a role he served in until 1879 when failing health forced him to resign. For seven months in 1850, his father Eliakim's home in Stratford, CT was the site of bizarre spiritualist rappings and phenomena which were widely reported in the press. These events were an influence on Austin's daughter Mary Gray Phelps (1844-1911), a feminist who later wrote three popular spiritualist novels under the name Elizabeth Stuart Phelps