Sunglasses became a common everyday accessory in the late 1930s and early 1940s, driven by cheap mass production, military adoption, and Hollywood glamour. But the path from snow glare protection to fashion staple stretches back centuries, with several key turning points that transformed tinted eyewear from a niche tool into something nearly everyone owns.
Early Eye Protection Before Lenses
Long before anyone shaped glass into a lens, people in Arctic regions were solving the problem of snow blindness. Inuit communities carved snow goggles from walrus ivory, bone, antler, musk-ox horn, or wood, with narrow slits cut across the front for the wearer to see through. These goggles, dating to roughly 1000 to 1600 CE, worked by drastically limiting the amount of light reaching the eyes. No tinting required. The slits blocked most of the sunlight reflecting off ice and snow while still allowing enough visibility to hunt and travel.
By the 12th century, Chinese craftsmen were producing something closer to what we’d recognize as sunglasses: small flat panes of smoky quartz, darkened to reduce glare. Judges wore them during court proceedings, though not primarily for sun protection. The dark lenses hid their facial expressions, keeping witnesses and defendants from reading their reactions. These may have been invented even earlier, but the 12th century is the most reliable date historians can confirm.
Tinted Lenses Enter European Medicine
In the 1750s, London optician James Ayscough began fitting spectacles with blue and green tinted lenses. He wasn’t trying to block sunlight. He believed the tinted glass could help treat certain vision problems, though his medical reasoning didn’t hold up to later scrutiny. Still, Ayscough’s work matters because it introduced the idea that colored lenses could serve a practical purpose beyond simple darkening. For the next century and a half, tinted eyewear remained a medical curiosity, prescribed for specific eye conditions rather than worn casually outdoors.
1929: The First Mass-Produced Sunglasses
The real shift toward widespread use began in 1929. Sam Foster, who had founded a company in 1919 to manufacture ladies’ hair accessories, sold his first piece of eyewear at a Woolworth store on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Foster Grant sunglasses were cheap, attractive, and available where ordinary people were already shopping. Atlantic City’s beach crowds were the perfect market: vacationers who wanted something affordable to keep the sun out of their eyes.
That same year, Edwin Land patented a polarizing filter that would eventually transform the industry. His Polaroid lenses didn’t just darken the view. They selectively blocked the specific light waves that cause glare, particularly the horizontal reflections bouncing off water, roads, and flat surfaces. Polaroid sunglasses initially sold in fishing and hunting shops across the United States but quickly found a much broader audience.
Military Pilots and the Birth of Ray-Ban
High-altitude flying in open cockpits created a serious vision problem for military pilots in the 1930s. US Army Air Corps Lieutenant General John Macready commissioned Bausch & Lomb to design eyewear that could cut glare without distorting a pilot’s view of instruments and terrain. The result was a prototype with green-tinted lenses shaped in a large teardrop to cover the entire field of vision. The lenses removed glare while preserving color accuracy and clarity. Because the eyewear “banned” distracting rays from pilots’ eyes, the product was named Ray-Ban.
Military sunglasses gave the accessory something it had never had before: an association with toughness, competence, and adventure. When pilots wore their aviators off duty, civilians noticed.
Hollywood Turned Sunglasses Into Fashion
The 1930s film industry sealed the deal. Hollywood stars began wearing sunglasses both on set and off, and audiences paid attention. Greta Garbo became known for round-framed sunglasses that amplified her famously mysterious persona. Clark Gable wore aviators that reinforced his image of rugged masculinity. The silver screen transformed sunglasses from a practical tool into a symbol of glamour and intrigue.
This Hollywood effect was self-reinforcing. Studios bathed actors in intensely bright lights during filming, giving them a genuine reason to shield their eyes outdoors. Fans saw their favorite stars in sunglasses in magazine photos and newsreels, then wanted a pair of their own. By the late 1930s, sunglasses had crossed from specialty item to mass fashion accessory. An estimated 20 million pairs were sold in the United States in 1937 alone.
Postwar Materials Made Them Cheaper and Safer
Glass lenses were heavy and shattered on impact. In 1947, the Armorlite Lens Company began manufacturing eyeglass lenses from CR-39, a plastic polymer originally developed by Columbia Resins in 1940. CR-39 was lighter than glass, resistant to scratches and most solvents, and far less likely to send shards into a wearer’s eye if it broke. The material made sunglasses more comfortable for all-day wear and safe enough that parents were less hesitant to put them on children.
Plastic frames, which had been improving since the 1930s, also got cheaper and more varied in the postwar period. Combined with lightweight plastic lenses, this brought the price of a decent pair of sunglasses low enough for virtually any budget. By the 1950s and 1960s, sunglasses were a standard part of summer life across the Western world, available in gas stations, drugstores, and department stores everywhere.
Why the Late 1930s Is the Real Answer
People have been shielding their eyes from the sun for at least a thousand years, and tinted lenses existed for centuries before sunglasses went mainstream. But the convergence of Foster Grant’s mass production starting in 1929, polarized lens technology, military aviator glasses, and Hollywood influence all within the same decade created the tipping point. By the end of the 1930s, sunglasses had completed the jump from medical device and military gear to something millions of people bought for a day at the beach. Every development since, from plastic lenses to designer frames to UV-rated coatings, has built on that foundation.