Coopers Inc., founded by Samuel T. Cooper , in 1876 was started as a hosiery business. Cooper began the business when he learned that lumberjacks were suffering from blisters and infections caused by poor wool socks. In 1900 Cooper began making undergarments and demand increased so quickly that by 1902 a extensive new factory was built to support sales.

By the 1930's Coopers was nearly bankrupt due to hardships caused by The Great Depression until two important events occurred. The first, Harry H. Wolf, Sr. began working with the company to reorganize and save it. Then in 1934 Coopers designed a new style of underwear called the brief. On January 19, 1935 the Jockey brief was introduced in a Marshall Field and Company display window. Store management thought it was ludicrous to be displaying such skimpy underwear on a day when the worst blizzard of the winter was hitting Chicago, a day for long johns if there ever was one, and ordered the display removed. Before the display could be taken down, six hundred packages of Jockey Shorts were sold. Thirty thousand pair sold in the next three months, and Jockey began "Changing the Underwear Habits of the Nation."

Jockey briefs sold out in every store almost immediately, so in a brilliant marketing move Coopers sent its “Mascu-liner” airplane to bring special deliveries of “masculine support” Jockey briefs to desperate retailers.

Today, Coopers is known as Jockey International . The privately held company has operated for 125 years and is headquartered in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Today Jockey is a recognized Trademark in over 120 countries.