This Day In History: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans

Something cool to read for those of us who have spent our lives in jeans!--Tabbi



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May 20: General Interest
1873 : Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans

On this day in 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno,
Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants
reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world's
most famous garments: blue jeans.


Born Loeb Strauss in Buttenheim, Bavaria, in 1829, the young Strauss
immigrated to New York with his family in 1847 after the death of his
father. By 1850, Loeb had changed his name to Levi and was working in
the family dry goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. In early 1853,
Levi Strauss went west to seek his fortune during the heady days of
the Gold Rush.


In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business
under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his
family's firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other
dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and
other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of
gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company
to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and
supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco.


Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, was one of Levi Strauss'
regular customers. In 1872, he wrote a letter to Strauss about his
method of making work pants with metal rivets on the stress points--at
the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly--to make
them stronger. As Davis didn't have the money for the necessary
paperwork, he suggested that Strauss provide the funds and that the
two men get the patent together. Strauss agreed enthusiastically, and
the patent for "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings"--the
innovation that would produce blue jeans as we know them--was granted
to both men on May 20, 1873.


Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first
manufacturing facility for "waist overalls," as the original jeans
were known. At first they employed seamstresses working out of their
homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. The
famous 501 brand jean--known until 1890 as "XX"--was soon a
bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi's denim
waist overalls were the top-selling men's work pant in the United
States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are
worn by men and women, young and old, around the world.

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