Virginia Postrel, Columnist

The iPhone of 1939 Helped Liberate Europe. And Women.

A troubled chemist invented nylon, the fiber that shaped the world. Then we took it for granted.

October 25, 2019 at 1:00 PM UTC

Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.”

Tech boom.
Photographer: Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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This week marks the 80th anniversary of one of the most successful and consequential product introductions ever. On Oct. 24, 1939, nylon stockings went on sale to the public for the first time. The frenzied reception was comparable to the one that greeted the original iPhone, and so were the long-term consequences.

“Customers were lined three deep at the counters most of the day,” reported the New York Times, noting that many buyers were men. The sale was merely a trial: 4,000 unbranded pairs sold by DuPont to demonstrate its new fiber’s real-world wearability. By 1:00 p.m., the six Wilmington, Delaware, stores offering them were completely sold out.