Did Otto Titzling invent the bra?

[Mark Israel]

# "titsling"/"brassiere"
# ----------------------
#
# "Brassiere" is first recorded in a Canadian advertisement of
# 1911. Dictionaries derive it from obsolete (17th century) French
# _brassiere_ "bodice", from Old French _braciere_ "arm protector",
# from _bras_ "arm".
#
# In the southern U.S., a bra is sometimes called a "tit-sling".
# This has an obvious derivation.
#
# Wallace Reyburn, to whom Thomas Crapper owes his current fame,
# wrote a later book describing a lawsuit over rights to the bra
# between a German designer, Otto Titzling, and a French designer,
# Philippe de Brassiere. Martin Gardner, in _Time Travel and Other
# Mathematical Bewilderments_ (Freeman, 1988, ISBN 0-7107-1925-8),
# p. 137, says: "The book by Wallace Reyburn _Flushed with Pride: The
# Story of Thomas Crapper_ does exist. For many years I assumed that
# Reyburn's book was the funniest plumbing hoax since H. L. Mencken
# wrote his fake history of the bathtub. [...] Reyburn wrote a later
# book titled _Bust-up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the
# Development of the Bra_. It turns out, though, that both Thomas
# Crapper and Otto Titzling were real people, and neither of
# Reyburn's books is entirely a hoax."

I have now seen the book _Bust-up_. (It's in the UCSD library.
Prentice-Hall, 1972, ISBN 0-13-108761-4.)

According to the book, Otto Titzling was born in Hamburg in 1884
and died in New York in 1942. His father, Gustav Titzling, a civil
engineer who specialized in bridge-building, immigrated to New York
when Otto was 3. Philippe de Brassiere arrived in New York from
Paris in the late 1920s, and set up as a dress designer on Fifth
Avenue. In 1934, Titzling sued Brassiere for copying garment designs.
The case "attracted a great deal of publicity" and dragged on until
1938. Titzling received only token damages and was not awarded
costs.

Does someone out there have the resources to ascertain whether
this court case actually occurred?

--
mis...@scripps.edu Mark Israel

[Ken Holt]

> # Wallace Reyburn, to whom Thomas Crapper owes his current fame,
> # wrote a later book describing a lawsuit over rights to the bra
> # between a German designer, Otto Titzling, and a French designer,
> # Philippe de Brassiere. Martin Gardner, in _Time Travel and Other
> # Mathematical Bewilderments_ (Freeman, 1988, ISBN 0-7107-1925-8),
> # p. 137, says: "The book by Wallace Reyburn _Flushed with Pride: The
> # Story of Thomas Crapper_ does exist. For many years I assumed that
> # Reyburn's book was the funniest plumbing hoax since H. L. Mencken
> # wrote his fake history of the bathtub. [...] Reyburn wrote a later
> # book titled _Bust-up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the
> # Development of the Bra_. It turns out, though, that both Thomas
> # Crapper and Otto Titzling were real people, and neither of
> # Reyburn's books is entirely a hoax."

I own _Flushed with Pride_, and it's not a humorous book, although it has
its humorous moments. It's a serious and very interesting chronicle of
the life and work of Sir Thomas. Pavilion Books Ltd, London, 1989, ISBN
1-85145-396-2. (Text copyright by Wallace Reyburn, 1969.) Available in
the US from Past Times, 280 Summer St., Boston 02210-1182.

Ken Holt, Pittsburgh, PA
kh...@telerama.lm.com
--
+----------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Ken Holt kh...@telerama.lm.com | Early music lover |
| Pittsburgh, PA | and computer junkie |
+----------------------------------+-------------------------------+