Riveted Blue Jeans

As people left the farm and started working in factories and making railroads it became evident that you needed more heavy duty clothes to protect you from the heavy machinery since there were sharp edges and hard metal. Of course, thick clothes wouldn’t stop a locomotive from crushing you if it ran you over but if hot steam sprayed on a shirt it will burn you but if you wear heavier clothes it wouldn’t hurt. Cowboys also needed thicker pants since they spend all day in the saddle which wears out their pants. Miners were rushing to California and they needed tough clothes since they would be using big tools and they would be working with lots of stone. Levi Strauss was born in Germany and moved to America with his mother and his two sisters. His two older brothers had already set up a dry goods shop in New York City so he came to work for them. Their shop was doing so well they decided to set up another in California and that Levi would run it. Instead of going from one end of the country to the other he took a boat down and around the southern tip of South America. So Levi set up shop in California. Jacob Davis was a talented tailor in California who made wagon covers and tents out of denim and when he was done he added copper rivets to strengthen them since they needed to stand up to the weather. He got the denim from Levi’s company. One day one of his customers asked him to make strong pants for mining and Davis did make the pants and put in rivets. He decided to patent it, but needed more money so he asked Levi if he wanted to partner to patent it, and Levi agreed.