Strauss triumphed over other types of pants when he first patented his infamous brand, much like today. We see jeans on nearly everyone of every age, gender, race, and religion in America (1). How did blue jeans declare victory over slacks for men? Or skirts and dresses for women? Many cultural and economic eras and movements shaped the supremacy of jeans today.
While some miners in the Gold Rush became rich by striking gold within the mines, Levi Strauss became rich by filling the miner’s need (2). First and foremost, the beginning of denim popularity can be credited to Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss by recognizing a large target market and created a miner’s necessity that was needed for durability and washability, because the miner’s drank poor water that led to diarrhea. (3). Jacob Davis was a tailor around Reno where there was gold mining and he bought his denim from Levi Strauss. Davis had been putting copper riviting in denim for the miners of this area so that they would be durable and washable (4). Davis did not want to pay the money for a patent, so he asked Strauss to pay for it and become a partner (5). Levi Strauss became the more notable partner because of his connections made with previous denim buyers and because of his knowledge of the San Francisco area.Strauss opened his denim business in San Francisco, CA to the rapidly growing city of gold miners in 1953 (6). He realized the working class Americans of both the Gold Rush Era and the Great Depression needed a highly-functional pair of pants before anyone else came to the same conclusion. Miners and railroad workers were becoming impatient with the stiff, uncomfortable trousers (7). When Levi Strauss & Company were given their paten in 1873, they were buying the denim fabric for their jeans from Amoskeag Manufacturing Company (8). Levi Strauss & Company associated “commitment to quality” with their brand because of this identity with the proud reputation of the textile factory(9).
In the Early 1900s, Henry David Lee was inspired to make his own version of the blue jeans and became Strauss’ first real competition. He felt he could not depend on the business of his eastern buyers, so he started manufacturing denim jackets and overalls (10). Lee also started marketing his business for railroad workers, but he became popular also with farmers, factory workers and engineers (11). Strauss and Lee both became extremely popular, both becoming somewhat interchangeable brands with customers as the rise of jean popularity advanced (12).
In the Great Depression, Americans flocked to these less expensive style of pants. They also needed a durable and washable pant in this time due to their manual labor and little income (13). Americans were bombarded with sudden images of cowboys, country singers and the “heroes” of the US all wearing jeans from magazines, radios, music and advertisements (14).
Photo courtesy of Apartment Therapy
The popularity of jeans continued to rise with celebrities like James Dean, Marlon Brando and The Beatles encouraging the wearing of denim through their own (15). Wearing jeans became the way for the youth the “shed” their parent’s generation and tradition and an entire generation of younfg people were dressing in denim (16). Overtime, jeans were made to fit women more like skin than a pair of pants because jeans designers could sell “sexy” (17). Today, this generation has grown into an older generation and with it, has passed along the normality of wearing jeans to their children.
