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The family decided to open a West Coast branch of their dry goods business in San Francisco, which was the commercial hub of the California Gold Rush.
Strauss opened his wholesale business as Levi Strauss & Co. and imported fine dry goods from his brothers in New York, including clothing, bedding, combs, purses, and handkerchiefs. He made tents and later jeans while he lived with his sister Fanny and her growing family. Jacob W. Davis was one of his customers and one of the inventors of riveted denim pants. In 1871,the two went into business with Strauss to produce blue jeans. The two men patented the new style of work pants in 1873.
Loeb Strauss was born today February 26
and 1829 he died at 73 in 1902 is a
German American businessman who founded
the first company to manufacture blue
jeans Levi Strauss and company founded
in San Francisco 1853 he was born in
Germany and made his way to America he
worked for several years as a traveling
salesman in Kentucky and when he was in
Kentucky they changed his name they gave
him a biblical name of Levi I was
literally gonna ask you or Levi because
you said his name was Lobo hello EB lo
EB yeah so they changed his name to Levi
and he made his way out to San Francisco
during the gold rush in the 1850s he
opened up a wholesale business there and
he imported dry goods from his brothers
in New York so he sold things like
clothing and bedding and combs purses
handkerchiefs those sort of things tense
customers complained that the ordinary
work pants that he was selling ripped
too easily in the rugged work of mining
so he took and had some pants made from
canvas from the tents he had there so he
had some pants made out of canvas
everybody complained that those pants
were too uncomfortable it’s like
Goldilocks this bed is just right so he
knew of a French made fabric called and
you know French better than me Serg e de
ni mes so pseudonym sirs denim there’s T
no there’s no which he Americanized the
denim in him okay that’s where denim got
its name so one of his customers Jacob
Davis was also working on riveting pants
at stress points because it would rip
so Strauss and Davis got together and
with their new French denim and decided
to make what we now know his jeans and
they patented the process in 1873 and at
a new style of work pants they also
patent they also then started riveting
with the pockets because they would rip
too instead of just at the stress points
stress points they were first marketed
as waist high overalls and they became
the most popular man’s work where he
grew the company to be a multi-million
dollar company when he died he never
married and when he died he left the
company to his four nephews this I
thought was odd so he died in
19:02 his estate was only worth at the
time six million dollars that was low
they said in equivalent dollars today it
would be 174 million volumes low hello
for a brand like Levi’s I guess he
didn’t they said in 1994 he was inducted
into the Hall of great Westerners in the
National cowboy and Western Heritage
Museum Hall of Fame Levi Strauss talked
about transforming not only the look of
the West but in fashion and period yeah
I mean so here you had something that
began as a utility or a utilitarian
piece of clothing for that particular
area but it’s because of the the
solution he came up with rugged durable
easy to keep clean lasts forever or like
whatever what I was surprised about was
the denim I had no idea that came from
France France it was always as if
American jeans were the best right now I
guess we always thought the material was
just some sort of hard cloth or canvas
mm-hm so I didn’t I didn’t realize that
was the that’s a that’s a good business
birthday because talk about a again it’s
kind of like when you had the
roto-rooter guy on or Ruth crit like
these are things that change like Levi
Strauss changed a lot man that’s well
you know then finding these birthdays
lately I I do a little more research
then not anymore than I did in the past
when I’m trying to find things that you
and I’d be interested in versus the Bank
of America forty million bucks salary
