In 1752, an eyeglass designer named James Ayscough created a pair of spectacles with double-hinged side pieces, and he created his lenses as clear and tinted. He believed that the sunlight was very unhealthy for the eyes, and that the clear lenses made it even worse. He advised the use of green and blue glasses. His glasses were the first sunglasses ever, although they were not quite UV (ultra-violet) protected. His advice to use blue or green tinted lenses only made the eyes more comfortable in the sunlight. They did, however, correct vision problems.

Sam Foster manufactured the first pair of Foster Grant sunglasses at Woolworth on the Atlantic City Boardwalk in the late 1920s. He had started his company Foster Grant a decade earlier. Sunglasses soon became a big hit. This would not have been possible without Edwin H. Land, the inventor famous for creating the Polaroid camera. He invented a cellophane-like polarizing filter which the first modern filters to polarize light. In the 1930s, he and a physics instructor George Wheelwright III created the Land-Wheelwright Laboratories in Boston. Here, he continued his studies with sunglasses. Later he founded the Polaroid Corporation, and his filters were used in "Polaroid sunglasses."

Since the 1930s, sunglasses have made a significant mark in our American culture. Sunglasses are still are more than for function - they are for vanity as well. To wear great sunglasses is to be cool.