facts about Jacob Davis
co-inventor of Blue Jeans in 1873.
AT A GLANCE:
No item of clothing is more
American than the blue jeans invented in 1873 by Jacob Davis and Levi
Strauss. These two visionary immigrants, turned denim, thread and a
little metal into the most popular clothing product in the world. Waist
overalls, was the traditional name for work pants, which is what these
first jeans were called.
DID YOU KNOW?
||Jacob W. Davis (aka Jacob Youphes)
||First to invent. First
to patent. First practical.
||1834 in Riga Latvia
||1908 in San Francisco,
waist overalls, jeans, Levi's® Jeans
especially pants, that are usually close-fitting and created
from the rugged cotton twill textile that is colored blue with
(US) issued May 20, 1873-Fastening Pocket-Openings
1834 Jacob Youphes born in Riga Latvia
1853 Levi Strauss starts a dry-goods
business Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco, California
1854 Jacob moves to New York City, New York and changes his name to
1856 Jacob moves to San Francisco, California
1858 Jacob moves to Canada where he lives for for nine years, marries
and starts a family
1867 jacob returned to San Francisco by ship from Victoria, British
1868 Jacob moves to Virginia City, Nevada where he operated a cigar
store for three months
1868 Jacob moves to Reno Nevada investing in a brewery, he lost
1869 Jacob opens a tailor shop abricating wagon covers, tents and horse
1869 Jacob buys the cloth he needs from San Francisco's Levi Strauss &
1870 Jacob expands his business to include work coverall clothing
1871 Jacob who was using rivets on horse blankets, decides to try them
on pant pockets for strength
1872 Jacob wrote a letter to Levi suggests that they hold the riveted
pants patent rights together.
1872 on August 8, filed patent application for Improvements in
1873 patent 139,121 awarded to Jacob Davis and one half assigned to
Levi Strauss & Co.
1873 Levi hires Jacob to oversee production of the riveted pants at the
San Francisco plant
1909 Jacob Davies dies in San Francisco, California
CAPS: Davis, Jacob Davis, Jacob Youphes, Levi Strauss, ARY,
jeans, blue jeans, levi's, denim waist overalls, 501, dungaree, SIP,
history, biography, inventor.
No item of clothing is more American
than the blue jeans invented and perfected in the last quarter of the19th century by
Jacob Davis and Levi
Strauss These two visionary immigrants, turned denim, thread and a little metal into the most popular clothing
product in the world - blue jeans.
Jacob Youphes was born in 1834 in Riga Latvia. He came
to the US and then to San Francisco in the 1854 and changed his name to
Jacob Davis. He operated a tailor shop in New
York City and Augusta, Maine. In 1856, he arrived to San Francisco and
shortly thereafter moved north to Weaverville to work as a tailor. In 1858, he left California for western Canada
where he lived for nine years, married, and started a family.
Davis returned to San Francisco by ship from Victoria, British Columbia, in
January 1867. He soon traveled to Virginia City, Nevada where he first
opened a cigar store, but within three months he again turned to his trade
as a tailor. In June 1868, he relocated once again, this time to the
fledgling railroad town of Reno Nevada. Investing in a brewery, he lost virtually
everything. By 1869, he had opened a tailor shop on the town's main
thoroughfare, Virginia Street. He began fabricating wagon covers and tents
from a rugged off-white duck cloth sold by San Francisco's Levi Strauss &
He moved around the West
extensively trying to make a living through the 1860s. In 1868 Jacob settled
in Reno, Neveda tailoring fine clothing and manufacturing utilitarian items such as
tents and horse blankets from "duck" (a sturdy cotton fabric) with copper
rivets for added strength.
In the late 1870s a woman came to him for a pair of "cheap" pants for her
"large" husband who had the habit of going through pants rather quickly.
Having found that thread alone did not always adequately hold the pockets
onto work pants, Jacob decided to try out rivets, which had proven their
worth on horse blankets on the pockets for these pants.
By 1871 Davis was routinely using rivets on the pants he made, first on
duck, soon after on denim, and was beginning to be imitated by other
tailors. He contacted Levi Strauss, his fabric supplier, to help him apply
for a patent.
The patent application was rejected several
times by the patent office but finally granted jointly in the names of Davis
and Levi Strauss & Company on May 20, 1873. By then, Davis had already
departed Reno for San Francisco to operate what amounted to an elaborate
tailor shop for Strauss (he delivered his first pants to the company on June
2) and then, when more output was needed, to open and run a new Strauss
manufacturing plant. After the expiration of the patent in 1890, Strauss
began cranking out a less expensive version of Double XX to compete with a
sudden flood of blue jeans on the market made by other companies.
Strauss was a regional company, and for decades jeans were a very small part
of its business and were sold mostly to workers. (Jacob Davis went to New
York in 1876 and opened a plant, J. Strauss, Brother and Company, which shut
down after Jonas Strauss's death nine years later.) One company official was
quoted saying, "To be honest, at first we didn't look beyond the
cowboy/miner/laborer market in California, Arizona, Nevada, and maybe
Colorado and Utah and, in a minor way, Oregon and Washington."
Davis remained with Strauss the rest of his
career, taking over shirt lines as well as pants, and continued to supervise
the Levi Strauss factory until his death in 1908, he was succeeded in the
job by his son Simon Davis, who ended up running the company. Simon was
instrumental in the company's rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake and
designed a coverall that became the company's first nationally marketed
The term "Levi's," though, was not the company's--it originated with the
public, just as the public invented the term "coke" for Coca-Cola. But when
the public started referring to the pants generically as "Levi's," the
company quickly trademarked it. Unfortunately, because Davis didn't insist
on his name being included in the product name, Levi Strauss' name alone
became a synonym for the pants, leading to the spread of a myth that Strauss
While Levi Strauss sold work jeans, it was an obscure, Jewish tailor working
at 31 Virginia Street in Reno Nevada who added the rivets. A federal
patent-infringement case filed in February 1874 in the U.S. Circuit Court of
California, and housed in the National Archives regional branch in San
Bruno, south of San Francisco, contains the facts.
Invention of Blue Jeans from The Great Idea Finder
Levi Strauss Biography from The Great Idea Finder
ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Kid Who Invented the Popsicle: And Other Surprising Stories About Inventions
by Don L. Wulffson / Paperback - 128 pages (1999) / Puffin
Brief factual stories about how various familiar things were invented, many by accident,
from animal crackers to the zipper.
by Charlotte Foltz Jones, John O'Brien (Illustrator) / Paperback - 48
pages (1994) / Doubleday
Recounting the fascinating stories behind the accidental inventions of forty
familiar objects and products.
Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things
by Charles Panati / Paperback - 480 pages Reissue edition
(September 1989) / HarperCollins
Discover the fascinating stories behind the origins of over 500 everyday items,
expressions and customs.
Mr. Blue Jeans : A Story About Levi Strauss
Maryann N. Weidt, Lydia M. Anderson
(Illustrator) / Paperback - 64 pages / First Avenue Editions
Basic values shine stronger than the famous copper rivets in the sturdy denim pants
as the story of the Strauss family and company unfolds.
The Blue Jean
by Alice Harris / Hardcover: 144 pages / PowerHouse Books (October, 2002)
The Blue Jean is a long-overdue
appreciation of this iconic piece of clothing, sure to appeal to anyone
who's ever worn a pair of jeans. That means young and old, male and female,
famous and normal alike.
The Blue Jean Book: The Story Behind the Seams
by Tanya Lloyd Kyi / Paperback: 79 pages / Annick Press (September 3,
The story of denim's rise from modest workpants to high-fashion statement.
Ever since Levi Strauss made the first blue jean pants in California in the
1870s, everyone has wanted a pair. No one imagined America's love of denim
would travel around the world, yet jeans remain an essential part of our
lives. The Blue Jean Book chronicles this love affair.
ON THE WEB:
Patent Infringement Case - 1874
This story lay undiscovered for 100 years until Ann Morgan Campbell, chief
of the San Bruno branch of the National Archives, brought it to light in an
article in the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly.
In 1854, a Jewish Latvian immigrant named Jacob Youphes arrived in New York,
whose harbor was not yet adorned by the Statue of Liberty. Article by Dennis
Myers for Reno News & Review
of Levi's Jeans
Sometime during 1873, the first riveted clothing was made and sold. (We're not sure
of the exact date because we lost all our historic records in the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake and fire.)
Copper rivets in jeans: A Reno idea
The truth in this story lay undiscovered for 100 years until Ann Morgan
Campbell, chief of the San Bruno branch of the National Archives, brought it
to light in an article in the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly in 1974.
The official Levi's Web site.
Dimension - Inventor of the Week
Celebrates inventor/innovator role models through outreach activities
and annual awards to inspire a new generation of American scientists,
engineers, and entrepreneurs.
Tourism - Patricia LTD Tourist Office. Information links for traveling and
visiting Riga Latvia including accommodation, things to do, places to see
and how to get to Latvia.
DID YOU KNOW?:
- An original pair of Levi's jeans is part
of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
- The word, 'jeans,' came from the cotton
workpants worn by sailors from the port of Genoa, Italy, who were
themselves known as Genes.
- The jeans market has grown to be a
$14.6 billion industry
- On May 20, 1873, Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss received patent
#139,121 from the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
- In 1885 a pair of Levi waist overalls cost $1.25. Brand new.
By the turn of the century, the company charged $8.50 for a pair of blue
- In 1997, Levi Strauss & Co. paid $25,000
for a pair of 100 year old jeans (for their museum) found in an old
Colorado mine, which is the oldest known pair of Levi jeans.
- Seven out of 10 Americans say jeans are
their first pick for casual wear.
- The double row of stitching on the back pockets - known as the Arcuate
stitching design - is the oldest apparel trademark still in use today. It
was first used in 1873. During World War II, the Arcuate stitching design
was painted on the pockets due to government rationing of essential items
such as thread.
trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
Reference Sources in BOLD Type.
This page revised July 28, 2006.
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