What company founded Ray-Ban in 1937?

Bausch & Lomb founded Ray-Ban in 1937. The Rochester, New York, optical company developed glare-reducing sunglasses after working with U.S. Army Air Corps pilot Colonel John A. Macready, whose high-altitude flights exposed the limits of existing goggles.

The timeline is sometimes reported as 1936 or 1937. Bausch & Lomb created the first “Anti-Glare” prototype in 1936, then put the sunglasses on sale to the public in 1937. That commercial launch is why 1937 is the standard answer in many histories of the brand.

Ray-Ban was not founded by Luxottica, Essilor, or Zeiss. Luxottica acquired the brand from Bausch & Lomb in 1999 for a reported $640 million, which explains why modern Ray-Ban is often associated with the Italian eyewear group rather than its American origin.

The project’s original purpose was practical rather than fashionable: green lenses reduced the intense blue-and-white glare pilots encountered at altitude without badly obscuring their view. The resulting technology eventually became the foundation for Ray-Ban’s famous Aviator line.