Chicago's Brief History
By Scott Smith in Miscellaneous on Aug 10, 2005 3:13PM
Today is National Underwear Day and Chicagoist is celebrating by actually wearing some for once and by taking a look at the history of underwear in Chicago.
Modern underwear history can be traced back to 1876. In that year, a man named Samuel T. Cooper, a retired minister, was on vacation in Minnesota 
and saw many lumberjacks succumbing to foot infections due to poor quality wool socks. Though he had no previous experience in clothing manufacturing, he formed S. T. Cooper and Sons in a converted livery stable here in Chicago to manufacture men’s hosiery, much to the appreciation of today’s drag queens.
Two years later, Cooper began producing men’s underwear. Though he died in 1892, the company survived and by 1902 it had built the world’s largest underwear factory (though the success would be tempered by the death of Cooper’s sons in the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire). The company (now called Cooper’s) created “the brief” in 1934 and first introduced it here in Chicago though we’re unaware of when people started referring to them as “tighty-whities.”
In 1935, the Jockey brand was unveiled (so to speak) and its current base of operations is just a short drive north in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Much like the time Chicagoist toured the Playboy corporate headquarters only to discover that no one was airbrushed, we were surprised to learn that employees of Jockey don’t just walk around in their underwear all day. In fact, the ComputerWorld website indicates that they’re more of a business casual environment rather than bedroom casual.
Like most questionable-sounding “days”, National Underwear Day began as a marketing ploy brought to you by freshpair.com. We know we’re playing right into their nefarious little hands with this piece but we’re sort of hoping the folks at Crunch see this and send their Underpants Squads 
downtown for our lunch hour again.
Chicagoist lives in hope that someday Fruit of the Loom will cave to enormous public pressure and start making adult-sized Underoos. Until then, gents can rock these flaming Superman shorts and ladies can make do with this Wonder Woman set or the somewhat disturbing Care Bear thong.