Levi Strauss, born Löb Strauß (February 26, 1829 - September 26, 1902) was the German-born Jewish-American^[1] creator of the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His namesake firm, Levi Strauss & Company, was founded in 1853 in San Francisco.

Background

Levi Strauss was born on February 26, 1829 to Hirsch Strauss and Rebecca Haas Strauss. His name at birth was Loeb, but when he immigrated to the U.S., it was changed to Levi. He was born in Buttenheim in Bavaria^[2], Germany. 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 uncle, Daniel Goldman in Louisville, Kentucky. There he spent the next five years learning the language in order that he might someday take over his uncle's ranch. But Levi had dreams of becoming an independent businessman, and for several years he walked the roads of Kentucky, selling notions from the pack on his back.

In 1847, Strauss, his mum and two sisters moved to New York City to join his brothers Jonas and Louis Löb in their dry goods business. By 1850 he had adopted the name "Levi Strauss".

In 1853, Strauss became an American citizen^[3]and moved to bustling San Francisco, California, where the California Gold Rush was still in high gear. Levi expected that the mining camps would welcome his buttons, scissors, thread and bolts of fabric; additionally, he had yards of canvas sailcloth intended for tent-making and as covers for the Conestoga wagons that dotted the landscape next to every stream and river in the area.

Person and his brother-in-law David Stern opened a dry goods wholesale business called Levi Strauss & Co. Levi, estimated at about 5' 11" and 185 pounds, was often found leading a pack-horse, heavily laden with merchandise, directly into the mining camps found throughout the region. The story goes that both prospectors and miners, often complaining about the easily torn cotton "britches" and pockets that "split right out" gave Levi the idea to make a rugged overall trouser for the miners to wear. These were fashioned from bolts of brown canvas sailcloth made from hemp, with gold ore storage pockets that were nearly impossible to split. Levi exhausted his original supply of canvas as the demand grew for his hard-wearing overalls, and so he switched to a sturdy fabric called serge, made in Nimes, France by the Andre family. Originally called serge de Nimes, the name was soon shortened to denim.

On May 20, 1873, Strauss and Davis received United States patent #139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the first of the famous Levi's brand of jeans in San Francisco, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Levi Strauss died on September 26, 1902 and was buried in Colma. He left his thriving manufacturing and dry goods business to his four nephews?Jacob, Louis, Abraham and Sigmund Stern?who helped rebuild the company after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The following year, Jacob Davis sold back his share of the company. Today, Levi Strauss & Co. continues to operate as a denim and clothing company.

External links

• Levi Strauss & Company
• Biography of Levi Strauss from the Official Levi Strauss Site.
• Levi Strauss - Biography
• Levi's
• Levi Strauss Museum in Buttenheim, Germany

References

1. ↑ Levi Strauss
2. ↑ German American Corner: STRAUSS, Levi (1829-1902)
3. ↑ Downey, L. "Levi Strauss: A Short Biography", 2005 (accessed at http://www.levistrauss.com/Downloads/History_Levi_Strauss_Biography.pdf on April 6, 2007)