Brass shells have been in use for a very long time. Back in the early days of cartridge guns, almost of necessity hunters had to load their own shells using brass cases. You couldn't go to the store and buy any gauge, shot size, and load of shotshell you wanted. Many hunters had maybe a dozen brass cases that they would load with whatever shot size and weight they needed before going out hunting. It wasn't until around the turn of the century that factory-loaded shotshells became widely available, but later it got ridiculous - the ammunition companies were offering hundreds of different shotshell load combinations, and continued to do so until around WWII when most of the companies cut way back on their offerings. Something else which was fairly common in the early years was local custom shotshell loaders. Many cities had custom loading shops who would buy empty shells from Winchester, UMC, etc. and load them to meet specific local demand for the types of loads typically desired by hunters for whatever game was common to the area.

The US started WWI using paper cased 00 Buck shotshells, but that didn't work out so well in muddy trench warfare, so later on brass case shells were used. I believe brass case shells were also used in combat zones by the US military during WWII. Plastic cased shells came along in the early 1960s and they eliminated the military case swelling problem in time for Vietnam.

Before plastic shells appeared, duck hunters also had problems with swollen paper shells. Remington, and possibly others, offered a line of laquered paper shells to duck and goose hunters which were fairly waterproof and swelling-proof. Remington's were called "Arrow" and are instantly recognizable because they are so shiny.