Levi Strauss | Tracey Panek
Levi Strauss & Co. has a unique history and an amazing heritage, but it involves much more than faded denim. Get the story from our Historian Tracey Panek.
Transcript
my name is Tracy Panik I am the
historian at Levi Strauss & Company
we’ll start down here with Levi Strauss
the founder of the company and our
namesake he was an immigrant to America
from Bavaria today’s Germany he came to
America with his mother and two sisters
in the 1840s it was the gold rush and
people were literally rushing into San
Francisco and Levi Strauss decided to
come to the west coast to expand the
family’s business arriving here in San
Francisco in 1853 not far from this
location where we’re at
he became very successful within the
first ten years he was not only known as
a successful businessman but also a
well-known philanthropist in fact a year
after he arrived here in San Francisco
he donated some of his earliest profits
to an orphanage and we continue to
support that orphanage to this day that
a commitment to giving back to the
community
thing that were proud of and that we
follow in his tradition since the time
he arrived in San Francisco one of his
customers was a tailor in Reno Nevada
his name was Jacob Davis and had come up
with an unusual way of making work pants
he had the idea that if you took a tiny
piece of metal and you added it to pants
especially in the pocket area where
people were putting their hands in and
out of and there was a lot of stress you
could create a very durable pair of
pants and he asked Strauss if he was
interested in taking out a patent for
this unusual process and Levi Strauss
agreed and the two began manufacturing
what would become the world’s first blue
jeans but we’re well known for doing
things that are right that may be
difficult we integrated our factories
years before the country in jeanral did
it we’re very proud of the fact that we
stood by our our beliefs and that was an
early example of integration before it
happened in the country he began that
tradition of giving back and were proud
that we continue to carry on that
tradition today
