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Another prospector, Alkali Ike, was to play a role in the evolution of jeans. Each time he returned to the saloon of Virginia City, he complained to his tailor, Jacob W. Davis, of pockets torn from his habit of carrying nuggets
in them, and asked why Davis couldn't nake his pockets as strong as those in Strass' Levis. Davis, tired of his customer's constant complaining, riveted the pockets together with copper wire. When Alkali Ike returned a few weeks
later, the entire boom town expected to witness the usual drunken spectacle, but this time the gruff miner, instead of getting drunk immediately and going around through the tents cursing, went to his tailor to show him that his
pockets had held together. Davis reported the incident to Strauss, who applied with Davis for a patent on July 5, 1872. The patent, number 139,121, was granted on May 20, 1873, the date regarded as the birthday of the firm. At that
time the jeans were sold for ¢22 each. Some of the early Levis are now in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Strauss made money with one hand and gave it away with the other, endowing 28 scholarships at the
University of California and contributing to several San Francisco orphanages. A lifelong bachelor, he left the company to four nephews, whose descendants still control it. Today Levi's are sold around the world, with about $5
billion in annual sales. |
STRAUSS, Levi (1829-1902). Levi Strauss, the man who gave the world
blue jeans, was born in 1829 in Bavaria. Orphaned at 16 years of age, Levi Strauss decided to join his five brothers and sisters in the United States. In
1843, young Levi sailed from Bremerhaven to New York where his two older brothers, Jonas and Louis, had already established a successful wholesale textile and tailoring business. After a stay of two days in New
York, he continued on to the ranch of his oncle, Daniel Goldman in Louisville Kentucky. There he spent the next five years learning the language and the
ways of his new homeland in order that he might someday take over his uncle's ranch. But Levi had dreams of becomming an independent businessman, and for several
years he walked the roads of Kentucky, selling cloth and notions from the pack on his back. In 1853 he returned to New York upon hearing reports of gold being discovered in California. He
persuaded his two brothers to provide himwith a supply of silk, cloth, and a few luxury items which he planned to sell in San Francisco. In addition he took a supply of canvas intened for the
Conestoga Wagons made by German wheelwrights in Pennsylvania and used by many gold prospectors to cross the continent. In 1850 he took a ship for San Francisco. By the time he
reached California he had sold everything to fellow passengers, except for the canvas. 
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