Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. The US Patent Office granted a patent to
Speaker 1: Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: years ago today. That was the patent for Improvements in
Speaker 1: Fastening Pocket Openings, which is generally recognized as the patent
Speaker 1: for the first blue jeans. We covered Levi Strauss and
Speaker 1: the development of blue jeans, along with other parts of
Speaker 1: his life and career in our August eighth, twenty eighteen episode,
Speaker 1: and that is today's Saturday Classic Enjoy Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson. And today's episode was requested approximately one
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, if you go by way of hyperbole
Speaker 1: by our listener other not really one hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: but it feels that way. It was a very long time,
Speaker 1: and I have had it on my list throughout that time,
Speaker 1: but I am only just now getting to it. For
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons. We are talking today about Levi Strauss,
Speaker 1: and his story is really historically interesting because it touches
Speaker 1: on a lot of important moments in US history. So
Speaker 1: he was an immigrant who ended up in a business
Speaker 1: that was impacted by and in turn affected the US
Speaker 1: Civil War and American clothing culture. He has a story
Speaker 1: that's tied to the Gold Rush. He also had a
Speaker 1: vision for his adopted city of San Francisco that he
Speaker 1: worked really hard to achieve so that future generations would
Speaker 1: benefit from it, and his life, in many ways is
Speaker 1: the story of the United States in the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: from the perspective of a Jewish immigrant who became a
Speaker 1: captain of industry. Before we get into his story, I
Speaker 1: will make a confession, which is that until fairly recently,
Speaker 1: probably five years is Shigo, I thought Levi and Strauss
Speaker 1: were two different people that had been in business together.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. So clearly I missed this in
Speaker 1: history class because even though people wear Levi's and you'd
Speaker 1: call it Levi Strauss, I didn't realize that was one
Speaker 1: person's proper name. So I grew up in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: not all that far away from Cone Mills, which is
Speaker 1: who made the denim for Levi's five oh ones for
Speaker 1: two hundred years or something, So like this is a
Speaker 1: piece of history that is like I'm a little more
Speaker 1: steeped in I didn't have confusion about whether Levi and
Speaker 1: Strauss are two people. It's not my proudest moment. But
Speaker 1: in my defense, even though I am a clothes person,
Speaker 1: I don't think I owned a pair of jeans of
Speaker 1: any flavor from about nineteen eighty five until like two
Speaker 1: years ago. Like that's just never been my things. So's
Speaker 1: that's my excuse paltry. Though it may be that I
Speaker 1: just never examined Levi Strauss. If it makes you feel better,
Speaker 1: I thought Hannah Barbara was one person. It was a woman.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that'd be funny, but no. So. Levi was
Speaker 1: born Lueb Strauss on February twenty, sixth of eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: nine in Budenheim, Germany. His father, Hirsch Strauss, was a
Speaker 1: salesman who sold household goods store to door. His mother's
Speaker 1: name was Rebecca has Strauss, and both she and Hirsch
Speaker 1: grew up in Franconia. It's an area in the north
Speaker 1: of modern day Bavaria, which was predominantly Jewish. Rebecca was
Speaker 1: Hirsch's second wife. His first wife, matel Baumann Strauss, had
Speaker 1: died at the age of thirty five, leaving him with
Speaker 1: five children. Then Hirsh and Rebecca had two more children together,
Speaker 1: a daughter, and then Lub and Hirsh. Rebecca and their
Speaker 1: seven children lived in a three room downstairs floor of
Speaker 1: a two story house. So this was a time when
Speaker 1: Bavaria's Udenadict or Jew law was in effect that had
Speaker 1: started in the eighteen teens. In this law seemed as
Speaker 1: though it offered Jewish citizens the opportunity to pursue a
Speaker 1: number of jobs that had once been forbidden to them,
Speaker 1: but in return, it also created really strict regulations for
Speaker 1: their lives. Among them, marriage and immigration of new Jews
Speaker 1: was severely limited. All Jews had to be registered, they
Speaker 1: had to take German names, they could not own land,
Speaker 1: and even their language was codified so all public records
Speaker 1: had to be kept in German. They could not use
Speaker 1: Hebrew for those someone like Hirsch Strauss, who traveled through
Speaker 1: the area selling his wares, also served as messengers and
Speaker 1: as community connectors during this time, and in this profession
Speaker 1: Kirsch was sort of exempted from a part of the
Speaker 1: Udon edict. Working as a peddler, which had been a
Speaker 1: traditional job for Jewish men in the area for a
Speaker 1: long time, was no longer considered an acceptable career, but
Speaker 1: older people like Hirsh who weren't able to pick up
Speaker 1: a new profession were allowed to keep doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was expected that they would just eventually die off,
Speaker 1: and so would that profession, and all of the limitations
Speaker 1: of the Uden edict eventually inspired emigration. One of the
Speaker 1: marriage laws that really created a problem was that only
Speaker 1: the eldest son of any Jewish household could get married,
Speaker 1: and so there were some workarounds like if another son
Speaker 1: that was younger wanted to marry a widow, that was acceptable,
Speaker 1: or if a couple that had no children wanted to
Speaker 1: give up the slot, their eldest son would have had
Speaker 1: to another family so they could have two sons Mary
Speaker 1: they could, but basically this really limited the entire societal
Speaker 1: culture because all of these young women could not get married,
Speaker 1: all of these young men could not get married. It
Speaker 1: was frustrating. So eventually they wanted to leave, and in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven there was a group of eighteen people
Speaker 1: that left. Eighteen young people and two of Lub's older
Speaker 1: siblings were part of that. They left Germany to make
Speaker 1: homes in London and New York. In nineteen forty and
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one. Two more of the Strass children followed suit.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty six, Hirsh died of tuberculosis. Rebecca remarried
Speaker 1: soon after to Hersh's brother, who was a widower named Lippmann,
Speaker 1: but Lippmann died just a few weeks after the wedding.
Speaker 1: Loub was seventeen at that time and two of his
Speaker 1: sisters were still living at home, and emigration at this
Speaker 1: point was not easy. You couldn't just pick up and leave.
Speaker 1: The Bavarian government had to approve anyone who wished to
Speaker 1: leave the country, and you had to prove that neither
Speaker 1: you nor anyone in your family had any sort of
Speaker 1: criminal record, and that you could afford to make the trip.
Speaker 1: On March seventeenth, eighteen forty seven, Rebecca Strauss filed an
Speaker 1: emigration petition in which she stated that because she was
Speaker 1: a widow, she didn't have the financial support anymore. She
Speaker 1: didn't know how she would provide for her youngest son,
Speaker 1: but she had children in the United States who could
Speaker 1: help her get settled there. Lib was old enough to
Speaker 1: work and contribute to the family's finances once they arrived,
Speaker 1: and for his part, Loub wrote his own petition, stating quote,
Speaker 1: no members of my family will stay behind. I will
Speaker 1: share the faith that has been assigned to me with
Speaker 1: them in foreign lands. I thus joined my mother in
Speaker 1: her place Poe. On June twenty sixth, eighteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: Rebecca and her children, so Lub and his two sisters
Speaker 1: were approved for immigration, but they didn't leave immediately because
Speaker 1: Rebecca needed to make sure that the family that had
Speaker 1: gone on to New York had indeed made preparations for
Speaker 1: the three of them to arrive and live there. They
Speaker 1: finally made their way in the spring of eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: although the specifics of their transatlantic passage aren't really documented
Speaker 1: or known. Jonas and Louis Strauss, Libb's brothers, had both
Speaker 1: become dry goods merchants in the city. They'd opened up
Speaker 1: a shop at three ninety three and a half Grand Street,
Speaker 1: but by the time the family arrived, they had moved
Speaker 1: to a more lucrative location at two three and a
Speaker 1: half Division Street. They lived above the shop. Jonas had
Speaker 1: also gotten married and started his own family, and at
Speaker 1: some point Lub followed the example that his siblings had,
Speaker 1: and he changed his name to a more americanized version.
Speaker 1: This was not uncommon, and in the eighteen fifty census
Speaker 1: he is listed as Levi with a Y. He also
Speaker 1: started working in the family dry goods business. While he
Speaker 1: was there, he learned English really quickly so that he
Speaker 1: could speak with business partners and customers, and he applied
Speaker 1: for US citizenship, just as his brothers had done before him.
Speaker 1: The Strauss's dry goods business was doing really well. They
Speaker 1: moved to another new location near Union Market in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, and as their family business was growing, a
Speaker 1: new opportunity was making itself a parent across the country,
Speaker 1: as the California Gold Rush fostered new towns, new prosperity,
Speaker 1: and a need for dry goods. The Strauss brothers did
Speaker 1: not want to miss a chance to capitalize on this
Speaker 1: new market, but they also needed to keep their established
Speaker 1: New York business going, and so the youngest brother of
Speaker 1: the family was sent west. Five days after he took
Speaker 1: his oath of citizenship. On January thirty first, eighteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: Loeb Strauss, who was now going by Levi, left New
Speaker 1: York for San Francisco aboard the US mailship Georgia, which
Speaker 1: was a steamer, and the family had already loaded a
Speaker 1: shipment of merchandise aboard another ship called the Winged Racer
Speaker 1: for Levi to take possession of once he reached San Francisco.
Speaker 1: The clipper Winged Racer was sailing down around the tip
Speaker 1: of South America and then north to California. Levi would
Speaker 1: make the trip in less time, traveling through Panama. This was,
Speaker 1: of course, before the Panama Canal was built, so he
Speaker 1: took the steamer Georgia to Panama and then traveled across
Speaker 1: that thin strip of the country to Panama City on
Speaker 1: the Pacific side. They got on another steamer there called
Speaker 1: the Isthmus and that was bound for San Francisco. He
Speaker 1: arrived in San Francisco on March thirteenth, eighteen fifty three.
Speaker 1: This was considered for a lot of people a safer
Speaker 1: plan than trying to travel overland from New York to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, because people often did not survive that journey,
Speaker 1: or if they did get to California, they got there
Speaker 1: in pretty sorry shape. This was a little bit of
Speaker 1: an easier move, and the specifics of Levi's first days
Speaker 1: in San Francisco are also unknown. He would have needed
Speaker 1: to rent warehouse space for the goods that were coming
Speaker 1: in on the winged racer, and he would have needed
Speaker 1: to find lodgings for himself. He most likely had some
Speaker 1: letters of introduction to family connections that had already made
Speaker 1: that journey west, so it wasn't as though he just
Speaker 1: showed up and had to figure everything out by himself.
Speaker 1: He had some security net in place that merchandise that
Speaker 1: had been shipped showed up two weeks after leap I
Speaker 1: did on March thirtieth. Unlike other merchants who had some
Speaker 1: bid on merchandise that was shipped on Speck, once it
Speaker 1: got to the port at San Francisco, Levi knew what
Speaker 1: was coming. He just had to inspect it, accept it,
Speaker 1: and then move it into the warehouse. As he got
Speaker 1: to know the market in California, he could ensure that
Speaker 1: future shipments contained items that would be the most likely
Speaker 1: to move and to make the most money. And for clarity,
Speaker 1: the Strausses were not opening a retail shop in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: even though they had sort of a similar one in
Speaker 1: New York. They were basically setting up a wholesale business
Speaker 1: that would sell stock to other merchants for their shops.
Speaker 1: So Levi had to invest time in developing really good
Speaker 1: relationships with other businessmen in the area, and he was
Speaker 1: twenty four at this point. He wasn't supporting a wife
Speaker 1: or family, so aside from attending synagogue and participating in
Speaker 1: social events primarily within San Francisco's Jewish community, all of
Speaker 1: his efforts could be focused on establishing the family's new
Speaker 1: West Coast firm. And he wasn't only working with retailers
Speaker 1: in San Francisco either. He also traveled inland to Sacramento,
Speaker 1: and he paid visits to smaller mining towns to make
Speaker 1: deals with the shopkeepers there. And this was an ongoing
Speaker 1: practice for the business that he pretty much carried out forever.
Speaker 1: So when news broke of new or strikes or a
Speaker 1: new town popping up, Strauss was smart enough to go
Speaker 1: get into those towns that sprouted up in those places
Speaker 1: really quickly and forge those new business partnerships. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about how Levi Strauss set up the
Speaker 1: Strauss family business in San Francisco, but first we will
Speaker 1: take a little break for a word from a sponsor.
Speaker 1: So Levi quickly established a list of regular clientele and
Speaker 1: even as he had received shipment of that first load
Speaker 1: of freight that his brothers had sent. There were already
Speaker 1: two other shipments on the way. He was doing business
Speaker 1: ostensibly for the company that his brother founded, which was
Speaker 1: Jay straussan brother, but he was invoicing clients sort of
Speaker 1: as a separate business as just Levi Strauss. In July
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five, Levi sent a shipment of gold back
Speaker 1: to his brothers. This was valued at a little over
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars at the time, which is estimated to
Speaker 1: be close to a quarter of a million dollars in
Speaker 1: modern currency. Of course, it's really difficult to make those estimates. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the California office was doing really well. In spite of
Speaker 1: the fact that there was something a financial panic going
Speaker 1: on in San Francisco that year, it didn't seem to
Speaker 1: impact Strauss. By the end of eighteen fifty five, he'd
Speaker 1: sent more than eighty two thousand dollars home in gold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the things that really made his business. It'll
Speaker 1: come up over and over that even when they are difficulties,
Speaker 1: they still managed to pull through and even do pretty well.
Speaker 1: Like people will always need dry goods, they always need clothes,
Speaker 1: and linens and household basics, so it was a really
Speaker 1: smart business to be in the first place. In eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six saw continued expansion of the Strauss enterprise in California.
Speaker 1: Levi's sister, Fogela, who had changed her name to Fanny
Speaker 1: when she moved to the United States, moved to San
Speaker 1: Francisco with her husband, David Stearns, and their children to
Speaker 1: assist with the growing responsibilities of the business, and his
Speaker 1: brother Lewis also joined them. It is possible, though unconfirmed,
Speaker 1: that his mother, Rebecca, made the journey as well, and
Speaker 1: for the first time since moving to the US, Levi
Speaker 1: actually had a home with an address that was separate
Speaker 1: from his business, not living above it or within it,
Speaker 1: indicating that there was this ongoing trend of prosperity. The
Speaker 1: firm also changed names that year from Jay Strauss and
Speaker 1: Brother to Jay Strauss, Brother and Company, maybe to acknowledge
Speaker 1: Levi's contribution, but on all records in California it was
Speaker 1: listed as Levi Strauss. Levi sent more than double the
Speaker 1: amount to New York in eighteen fifty six that he
Speaker 1: had in eighteen fifty five. That amounted to approximately two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. Eventually, in the late eighteen sixties, Levi
Speaker 1: changed the name of the California branch to Levi Strauss
Speaker 1: and Company, recognizing his family member's contributions. Eighteen fifty six
Speaker 1: was also the year that Levi Strauss became involved, along
Speaker 1: with his brother in law, in the Committee of Vigilance,
Speaker 1: which was a vigilante group made up largely of merchants
Speaker 1: that formed a combat the city's growing political corruption and
Speaker 1: related violence. While business and politics had largely stayed separate
Speaker 1: up to that point, concerns over how businesses could be
Speaker 1: impacted by the lawlessness of men in power led to
Speaker 1: the Committee of Vigilance nominating and eventually electing many of
Speaker 1: the city the business leaders into political office. So they
Speaker 1: picked people that they knew from other merchants and put
Speaker 1: them in office because they thought that was safer. And
Speaker 1: while Strauss did not seem to have any political ambitions
Speaker 1: of his own, he did back the political efforts of
Speaker 1: the Committee. Those committees, there were several of them and
Speaker 1: several places at this time period, and in some places
Speaker 1: their activities were kind of controversial because there was like
Speaker 1: an extra judicial violence capacity in this combat of corruption.
Speaker 1: So it's like there's a whole bigger story there. But
Speaker 1: his involvement was really about electing businessmen to city positions,
Speaker 1: and there had actually been a similar committee in San
Speaker 1: Francisco several years prior to this that was much more
Speaker 1: of like a vigilanti law force that thought that they
Speaker 1: would fill the gap between the crime that was going
Speaker 1: on and the police that were obviously to their minds,
Speaker 1: not doing anything about it. So that existed in San
Speaker 1: Francisco as well, although he was not part of that
Speaker 1: at the time. In eighteen fifty seven, the Strauss family
Speaker 1: experienced a financial loss. In September, the SS Central America,
Speaker 1: which had picked up passengers and freight in Panama, including
Speaker 1: a large shipment of gold, went down in a hurricane
Speaker 1: off the US coast in the Atlantic. More than four
Speaker 1: hundred people died and an estimated one point five million
Speaker 1: dollars of gold was lost, including seventy six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: that was en route to J. Strauss brother and Company
Speaker 1: from Levi Strauss and Company. Incidentally, the wreckage of the
Speaker 1: Central America was found and much of the treasure recovered
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, although there was a significant legal
Speaker 1: battle over who should get that gold. The sinking of
Speaker 1: the Central America set off a financial panic. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of gold that New York banks had been
Speaker 1: expecting on that ship, so when it didn't show up
Speaker 1: that was it was a significant economic disruption. And yet,
Speaker 1: as seems to be the pattern of his life, Levi
Speaker 1: Strauss weathered this storm. Part of this was because his
Speaker 1: brothers were the ones shipping him goods, so that meant
Speaker 1: he didn't have to reassure a supplier of his good
Speaker 1: credit and be like, no, no, I know, I lost
Speaker 1: some money, but I will make it up to you.
Speaker 1: They were like, yeah, we'll just keep it going. So
Speaker 1: the Strauss family continued business as usual, and because other
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs didn't have the credit or the leverage to do
Speaker 1: the same thing, Levi's business flourished as others shut down.
Speaker 1: By the end of the year, he was shipping gold
Speaker 1: to New York once again, and he had expanded to
Speaker 1: have offices in the city that were actually separate from
Speaker 1: his warehouse. He was also taking shipments of raw materials
Speaker 1: from suppliers outside the family, which he then leveraged in
Speaker 1: deals that got him discounts on the goods that were
Speaker 1: made from those raw materials. As the country found itself
Speaker 1: in the grip of the Civil War, San Francisco's citizens
Speaker 1: realized they could eventually be impacted by it. California had
Speaker 1: entered the Union as a free state, as outlined in
Speaker 1: the Compromise of eighteen fifty, but while most of the
Speaker 1: city was loyal to the Union, there were some concerns
Speaker 1: about some government officials wanting to ally with the Confederacy.
Speaker 1: After a pro Union rally in the city on May eleventh,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, at the junction of Montgomery Market and
Speaker 1: Post Streets, a resolution was put forth that formed a
Speaker 1: Union Committee of thirty four. This is a committee of
Speaker 1: respected men who would uphold the ideals of the Union,
Speaker 1: fill vacant government posts, and keep an eye out for treason.
Speaker 1: Levi Strauss is one of the men named as a
Speaker 1: member of this group, and one of only three Jewish
Speaker 1: men included. Yeah, they were very worried that there were
Speaker 1: people that were infiltrating California who were pro slavery, and
Speaker 1: that it was going to completely cause an upheaval of
Speaker 1: everything going on in the state, and particularly in a
Speaker 1: large city like San Francisco. So they really wanted to
Speaker 1: try to keep an eye out and prevent such a problem,
Speaker 1: and when the troops that were stationed at the Presidio
Speaker 1: were sent east to fight, it really left the people
Speaker 1: of San Francisco a little bit uneasy and they were
Speaker 1: fearful without protection. An a volunteer group known as the
Speaker 1: Home Guard was founded that consisted of three thousand men,
Speaker 1: and it sort of served as a makeshift military force.
Speaker 1: The Home Guard and the Union Committee of thirty four
Speaker 1: actually disbanded though, when Leland Stanford was elected California governor.
Speaker 1: Stanford was a pro Union Republican who was very well respected, successful,
Speaker 1: and powerful, so the concerns of some sort of pro
Speaker 1: Confederacy uprising that had led to the formation of those
Speaker 1: two groups were pretty diminished under his leadership. Strauss and
Speaker 1: his California business continued to do well through all of this,
Speaker 1: and the prosperity of California's merchants helped keep the country
Speaker 1: afloat through the Civil War. Strauss had recognized the value
Speaker 1: of real estate fairly early on and had invested in
Speaker 1: a number of properties throughout the city, which he often
Speaker 1: sold as a prophet after holding them for some time.
Speaker 1: Levi Strauss and Company also moved into a new space
Speaker 1: that he purchased in eighteen sixty seven, so was a
Speaker 1: four story building on Battery Stree that clearly showed the
Speaker 1: company's success. The company was known for its excellent and
Speaker 1: speedy service and the ability of its employees to satisfy
Speaker 1: client needs with even the largest orders. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a write up where they actually used the word empowered
Speaker 1: to describe the salespeople and clerks at Levi Strauss as
Speaker 1: being able, like they were empowered to meet the needs
Speaker 1: and agree to deals with clients, which is sort of
Speaker 1: a weird word to be using in the eighteen sixties,
Speaker 1: but there it was. Unfortunately, the late eighteen sixties also
Speaker 1: came with family loss, as Levi's half sister Mary died
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six and his mother, Rebecca passed three
Speaker 1: years later. After Rebecca's death, Levi traveled back to New
Speaker 1: York and he stayed there for a month, presumably to
Speaker 1: help settle accounts and get her affairs in order. There
Speaker 1: was also an embezzlement scandal at Levi, Strauss and Company
Speaker 1: in October of eighteen sixty six, when news broke that
Speaker 1: a bookkeeper had taken five hundred thousand dollars and left
Speaker 1: the country. While the company, not wanting to scare away
Speaker 1: business partners, said that there was no money missing, it
Speaker 1: also made a statement in an advertisement that the man
Speaker 1: in question, G. S. Goodman, was no longer with the
Speaker 1: company it was not authorized to conduct business on behalf
Speaker 1: of Levi Strauss and Company. This mix of messages seemed
Speaker 1: to blow over. While mister Goodman never saw any retribution
Speaker 1: of the fact that he had taken money from his employer,
Speaker 1: quite a lot of money from his employer, neither the
Speaker 1: company nor Levi Strauss personally seemed to suffer any negative
Speaker 1: fallout from it. Either. Yeah, that's one of those stories
Speaker 1: where it's like they completely claimed that it had not happened,
Speaker 1: so there is no record of it happening. But then
Speaker 1: the fact that they're also like, but also if you
Speaker 1: talk to that guy, he doesn't work for us anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, it does seem like it's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a weird combination of things to put out in
Speaker 1: the press. The company continued explosive growth right into the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies, as Levi, who obviously had an impressive business instinct,
Speaker 1: realized that he needed to expand into international markets. At
Speaker 1: that point, his business had expanded to supply merchants all
Speaker 1: along the Western Seaboard and into Oregon and Montana, but
Speaker 1: he was also expanding farther into the American Southwest, and
Speaker 1: then he started to reach out to potential clients in Canada, Mexico,
Speaker 1: and Hawaii. Coming up, we're going to dive into the
Speaker 1: thing that the Levi Strauss name is most closely associated
Speaker 1: with today, which is blue jeans. First, we're going to
Speaker 1: have a quick sponsor break. Jacob Davis, who presumably started
Speaker 1: out his yakub and americanized his name when he got here,
Speaker 1: was also a Jewish immigrant, and he had moved to
Speaker 1: the United States from Russia as a young man. He,
Speaker 1: like Levi, also worked in dry goods as a cutter
Speaker 1: and a tailor, although he had also dabbled in the
Speaker 1: brewery business and some other enterprises. He was also an inventor.
Speaker 1: He had developed a screw based clothing fastener, an ironing
Speaker 1: board that could also stretch clothes, and a folding press,
Speaker 1: and those last two items were granted patents, but that
Speaker 1: fastener was not. Jacob had also expanded his tailoring work
Speaker 1: to make tents and wagon covers. To capitalize on a
Speaker 1: need for those kinds of goods and mining towns in Nevada,
Speaker 1: where he lived, he started making very sturdy, long lasting
Speaker 1: trousers for laborers out of duck and denim. Duck is
Speaker 1: like a very densely woven cloth, and he eventually, on
Speaker 1: the sixth suggestion of a relative, started buying his duck
Speaker 1: yardage from Levi Straussing Company. Yeah, duck is usually compared
Speaker 1: to like a very densely woven canvas. Almost. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things that people still make work clothes out of.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't love it. It's a little stiff for
Speaker 1: my taste. It's very sturdy. It will last you a
Speaker 1: long time. And to please one of his hailering customers
Speaker 1: who came in to order work pants for her husband,
Speaker 1: who apparently wore through them at a pretty good clip,
Speaker 1: Davis used rivets to reinforce the pockets. The story goes
Speaker 1: that the wife came in because she said, my husband
Speaker 1: has worn out all his pants and cannot leave the house.
Speaker 1: I have to come at place's order. So she had
Speaker 1: to go back with a piece of string and mark
Speaker 1: like his waistline and other measurements and then bring it
Speaker 1: back to the shop and she was delighted. It appeared
Speaker 1: her husband was delighted. Jacob later saw her husband around
Speaker 1: town wearing these pants, so it seemed like everything was
Speaker 1: going great. And he included that detail those riveted pockets
Speaker 1: on a number of other pairs of pants because people
Speaker 1: started to see these pants in town and asked where
Speaker 1: they came from and could they also get the same ones,
Speaker 1: And so he started making these pants with duck canvas
Speaker 1: and riveted pockets for more and more people. As the
Speaker 1: riveted pants pocket became popular with his customers, Davis decided
Speaker 1: he should patent them, but that was a really expensive process,
Speaker 1: and the story goes that his wife didn't want him
Speaker 1: to spend money that they didn't have trying to do it.
Speaker 1: So along with a payment on an invoice that he
Speaker 1: sent to Levi strauss In company, he also sent two
Speaker 1: pairs of pants with the proposition that the company apply
Speaker 1: for the patent in his name and in return, he
Speaker 1: would give the company half the rights to sell the pants.
Speaker 1: This is like the most trusting move I can possibly
Speaker 1: imagine someone doing. I know, here's this thing I invented.
Speaker 1: I would like you to help me patent. By the way,
Speaker 1: it's not patented yet, but here it is. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: having been working on this day in history class and
Speaker 1: recently recording episodes on people like Filo Farnsworth and Nikola Tesla,
Speaker 1: Like there are so many stories about a big business
Speaker 1: that's like, I'm gonna take this patent from you for
Speaker 1: no money and exploit it. Yay. In a lecture that
Speaker 1: I was watching online of a Levi Strauss biographer whose
Speaker 1: book I used for a lot of this, she was saying, like,
Speaker 1: to her, this really indicates how trustworthy Levi Straus was
Speaker 1: perceived to be by people that just knew his name,
Speaker 1: Like he just had this reputation for being a really
Speaker 1: honest and good man, and so this person completely trusted
Speaker 1: him with his invention. And there it went, and Strauss
Speaker 1: was no fool. He went for the idea really quickly.
Speaker 1: He wrote up an agreement that gave the company Levi
Speaker 1: Strauss and Company exclusive rights to sell the pants on
Speaker 1: the West coast, and that quote rights outside of the
Speaker 1: Pacific Coast and territory shall be equally divided between ourselves
Speaker 1: and Davis. Davis agreed to these terms and made it
Speaker 1: very clear that this was not just about the rivets,
Speaker 1: it was also about the cut and construction. He offered
Speaker 1: to oversee the manufacture of the pants, either in New
Speaker 1: York or in San Francisco, whichever Strauss preferred, and the
Speaker 1: first patent application filed on behalf of Davis, was rejected
Speaker 1: on the basis that the military had been using rivets
Speaker 1: in the construction of shoes already, and so that just
Speaker 1: using them on pockets was really not an innovation. Strauss
Speaker 1: did not accept this. He hired lawyers who specialized in
Speaker 1: patent law to appeal the case, but it was once
Speaker 1: again rejected. In early eighteen seventy three, Strauss and Davis
Speaker 1: were preparing another go at a patent for these riveted pants.
Speaker 1: Davis and his family moved to San Francisco in May.
Speaker 1: A revised version of their application was submitted, this time
Speaker 1: with more detail about the distinction between the riveting that
Speaker 1: they were using on clothes and the way that rivets
Speaker 1: had been used on shoes. Just a few weeks later,
Speaker 1: on May twenty at of eighteen seventy three, the patent
Speaker 1: was issued. Strauss paid Davis for the value of his
Speaker 1: home and store in Reno Nevada, and the Davises made
Speaker 1: their move to San Francisco permanent so that Jacob could
Speaker 1: oversee production of this new line of riveted trousers. Strauss
Speaker 1: later sold this back to Davis for a dollar and
Speaker 1: he flipped it. Yeah, it was a couple of years
Speaker 1: later that Davis bought back his house and shop in Reno,
Speaker 1: and I think it was only like three months after
Speaker 1: that that he sold it. And at the time, they
Speaker 1: marketed these new pants as overalls, and that word did
Speaker 1: not have the connotation of bib overalls that it would
Speaker 1: have today. They were sometimes called waste overalls, like basically
Speaker 1: part of that was because you could wear them over
Speaker 1: other pants, but people wore them without pants underneath it
Speaker 1: as well. The first batches went out in June of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, so that was just a month after
Speaker 1: the patent was approved. At nineteen fifty per dozen pairs,
Speaker 1: so nineteen dollars and fifty cents for a dozen of them.
Speaker 1: This was a substantial increase over previous market prices for
Speaker 1: similar garments, more than a dollar more than individual purchasers
Speaker 1: were used to seeing. So for a merchant that was
Speaker 1: the middleman to have to pay that much per pant
Speaker 1: was significant. They really had to explain, No, these are
Speaker 1: going to last you so long. They are way stronger
Speaker 1: and better than other pants. Strauss opened up a new
Speaker 1: factory location so they could start more serious production. The
Speaker 1: following month, they placed an ad for first class female
Speaker 1: sewing machine operators. These operators had to bring their own
Speaker 1: sewing machines that were suitable for heavy work. Yeah he
Speaker 1: Even in the advertisement they laid out which sewing machine
Speaker 1: models would be acceptable and if you didn't have one
Speaker 1: of those, don't apply for the job. Soon Levi Straussing
Speaker 1: Company also started selling riveted duck coats for hunting, and
Speaker 1: by the end of eighteen seventy three they had sold
Speaker 1: an estimated twenty thousand garments. The pants that they were
Speaker 1: making at the beginning bore pretty much all the characteristics
Speaker 1: we see on Levi's today, although they have shifted in
Speaker 1: style a little bit, so they had copper rivets, they
Speaker 1: had that mustard orange thread for stitching, and the curvy,
Speaker 1: shallow V stitching on the back pocket. The year after
Speaker 1: Levi and Jacob's riveted overalls hit the market, Levi was
Speaker 1: named by The New York Times as one of San
Speaker 1: Francisco's millionaires. He had also set up the company, which
Speaker 1: was basically functioning on its own, a separate entity from
Speaker 1: Jay Strauss's brother and company. It's a co partnership with
Speaker 1: his brothers so that they would have power of attorney
Speaker 1: and be able to make decisions about the business in
Speaker 1: the event that he was not able to. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: kind of realized this has grown massive, and I can't
Speaker 1: be the only one who makes decisions if something goes awry.
Speaker 1: And that same year, Levi Strauss also sued a competitor
Speaker 1: who started using rivets in the construction of their pants.
Speaker 1: That other manufacturer, ab lfeldt In Company, pulled all the
Speaker 1: product that they had made from shelves once that suit
Speaker 1: was filed, but Strauss continued the legal action anyway in
Speaker 1: order to deter others from infringing on the patent. Just
Speaker 1: a couple of years later, Levi Strauss and his brothers
Speaker 1: set up an East Coast factory under Jacob Davis's supervision
Speaker 1: to make riveted goods, But in late eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: another manufacturer, HW King and Company started making riveted goods
Speaker 1: as well. Levi Strauss saw his company's numbers drop, even
Speaker 1: as they brought an infringement suit against this other company.
Speaker 1: After a four year legal battle, the case was decided
Speaker 1: in favor of Levi Strauss and Company. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: long time for that to drag out, but they were like, nope,
Speaker 1: we're going to do it eventually. They did start as
Speaker 1: their patents did not last forever, and they started realizing
Speaker 1: that they had to do branding so that their genes
Speaker 1: were completely recognizable from others and people could ask for
Speaker 1: them by look. That's how they developed their logo. They
Speaker 1: kind of knew they couldn't stave off other people using
Speaker 1: rivets forever, so they've got very savvy about how they
Speaker 1: presented their clothes. There were also two more deaths in
Speaker 1: the Strauss family in eighteen seventy four. Levi's brother in
Speaker 1: law and senior partner, David Stern, died in January and
Speaker 1: in August. One of David's sons, who was just eighteen,
Speaker 1: died for reasons that have been lost to the historical record.
Speaker 1: And even as there were losses, the family also continued
Speaker 1: to grow through marriage and children, and it reached a
Speaker 1: point where fourteen people were all living in Strauss's including himself,
Speaker 1: so they moved to a larger home on Leavenworth Street.
Speaker 1: In the eighteen seventies, Chinese immigrants in California were being
Speaker 1: viewed with increasing hostility as they competed for jobs with
Speaker 1: white laborers in the same market with fewer and fewer opportunities.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy six, Strauss was named in an expose
Speaker 1: that appeared in the Daily Morning Call. The claim was
Speaker 1: that Strauss was employing five hundred Chinese workers. A rebuttal
Speaker 1: appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle the following day, saying
Speaker 1: that the company employed exactly one Chinese person and that
Speaker 1: that person was in a position that white laborers had
Speaker 1: quote again and again tried and failed to do. That
Speaker 1: position was cutting the dense fabrics that were used to
Speaker 1: make these overalls. Generally, Levi Strauss and Company, like a
Speaker 1: lot of manufacturers at the time, really stressed in their
Speaker 1: advertising that their goods were made by white labor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a whole problematic thing. To talk about it
Speaker 1: a little more in a moment, But we have talked
Speaker 1: before also on the show about the racism that became rampant,
Speaker 1: particularly on the West coast of the United States during
Speaker 1: this time towards Asian immigrants, and he continued to do
Speaker 1: business with Chinese merchants. He did not seem to have
Speaker 1: an aversion to them at all or be racist towards
Speaker 1: them in terms of business partnerships. But he kind of
Speaker 1: knew that if he was like, yes, I hired Chinese labors,
Speaker 1: that it would tank the company because people would not
Speaker 1: trust him anymore. So he was complicit in this whole system.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't seem to reflect like a personal outward racism, right,
Speaker 1: I know. And in eighteen eighty he worked on the
Speaker 1: committee that arranged the San Francisco visit of President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Speaker 1: This was kind of funny because it was reported that
Speaker 1: mister and missus Levi Strauss attended a dinner in the
Speaker 1: President's honor, But Levi never got married, so it is
Speaker 1: unclear if he had taken a female relative to this
Speaker 1: event or an acquaintance, or if the paper simply got
Speaker 1: the facts wrong. In January of eighteen eighty one, the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bulletin published the details of Levi Strauss's funeral.
Speaker 1: There's one problem, he was very much alive at this point. Initially,
Speaker 1: this sounds like a really funny mix up, but it
Speaker 1: was actually a really sad moment. Levi's brother Lewis had
Speaker 1: been the one who had died, and the paper had
Speaker 1: to publish a correction the next day. Three years later,
Speaker 1: the Strauss's sister, Fanny, who had been very close to Levi,
Speaker 1: also died, and the oldest sibling and founder of the
Speaker 1: family business, Jonah Strauss, died in eighteen eighty five. Like Levi,
Speaker 1: his siblings had also been really involved in philanthropic work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about his philanthropy in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but all of their obituaries talk about all of the
Speaker 1: places that they donated both money and time, all of
Speaker 1: the causes they supported. It definitely was a family affair
Speaker 1: in terms of like wanting a better community and a
Speaker 1: better future for the children that would come after. Another
Speaker 1: devastating loss came in eighteen ninety three when Levi's nephew Nathan,
Speaker 1: who had been running the New York offices for the firm,
Speaker 1: shot himself in his office bathroom, and while it eventually
Speaker 1: came out that he had lost a good bit of money,
Speaker 1: it was never discovered exactly how that had happened. There
Speaker 1: were certainly lots of rumors about how it might have happened,
Speaker 1: but there is no clear evidence as to actually what
Speaker 1: had led him to that moment. In nineteen hundred, Levi
Speaker 1: Strauss and Company printed its first catalog. The business seemed
Speaker 1: to have no limit to its potential. At this point.
Speaker 1: He weathered a labor strike that took place throughout the
Speaker 1: city that year. In nineteen oh two, he also joined
Speaker 1: with other community leaders to speak out against making the
Speaker 1: provisions of the eighteen ninety two Geary Act permanent. The
Speaker 1: Geary Act had extended the provisions of the eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: two Chinese Exclusion Act, and we've talked about the Chinese
Speaker 1: Exclusion Act on the show. Before the telegram that was
Speaker 1: sent by Strauss and his colleagues to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Stated that barring legitimate Chinese merchants was an injustice. This
Speaker 1: plea did not have the desired effect, though the extension
Speaker 1: of the Geary Act came through. Yeah, and there's discussion
Speaker 1: of just how much this was like an activist moment
Speaker 1: versus your stupid to turn away business that's going to
Speaker 1: help our country and particularly our community grow. But he
Speaker 1: did speak out against it, even though that did not
Speaker 1: play out the way they had hoped. In September of
Speaker 1: nineteen oh two, Levi Strauss was diagnosed after feeling a
Speaker 1: little unwell for a bit with a slight congestion of
Speaker 1: the liver, and it was believed that he was going
Speaker 1: to recover, and he did start to feel better, and
Speaker 1: two days after a doctor had visited and given him
Speaker 1: this diagnosis, Levi Strauss died after eating dinner with his
Speaker 1: family and then returning to bed. He was interred at
Speaker 1: the family mausoleum at the Home of Peace Cemetery after
Speaker 1: a funeral at his home, and his four surviving nephews
Speaker 1: inherited the business and his fortune. His nieces each received
Speaker 1: a significant sum to be given directly to them and
Speaker 1: not to their spouses or other male relatives for management.
Speaker 1: That was something that one of his brothers had done
Speaker 1: as well. And he also left money to all of
Speaker 1: the various charities that he had worked with over the years.
Speaker 1: So I will tell you, and if you have listened
Speaker 1: to this podcast for any period of time, you can
Speaker 1: understand why that as I researched this episode, I kept
Speaker 1: waiting for the other shoe to drop because we have
Speaker 1: so many instances of really interesting seeming people that then
Speaker 1: in the course of actually digging into their biography we
Speaker 1: find out some horrifying thing that they did or were
Speaker 1: a part of. Here's the secret evil. I didn't think
Speaker 1: I was signing up for with this, right right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought this was like, no, they're horrible. And while
Speaker 1: Levi Strauss was certainly a shrewd businessman who did look
Speaker 1: after the interests of his company, he also seems to
Speaker 1: have been a genuinely nice and pretty good human being,
Speaker 1: surely not faultless. But I kept expecting some horrific thing
Speaker 1: to appear and it didn't. Yeah, We've got plenty of
Speaker 1: things that, like we said, were problematic, like being like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we only employ white people. That, yeah, that's not great.
Speaker 1: But also it was not a case of like, let
Speaker 1: me literally enslave people in the basement, which seems like
Speaker 1: that's more often than not the story we accidentally wind
Speaker 1: up telling. And his prosperity, Levi Strauss upheld the Jewish
Speaker 1: ideology of benevolence. He donated money to worthy causes in
Speaker 1: the San Francisco community, both those run by various iterations
Speaker 1: of Jewish benevolent associations and non Jewish charities as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he actually started donating money almost as soon as he
Speaker 1: started making money after he moved to California. It seemed
Speaker 1: to have been just something that was deeply important to him.
Speaker 1: And in the eighteen sixties he donated to the US
Speaker 1: Sanitary Commission to help clean up Union camps to minim
Speaker 1: the rampant disease there. He advocated for and participated in
Speaker 1: a shutdown of businesses in San Francisco on election day
Speaker 1: on November eighth, eighteen sixty four. That was the election
Speaker 1: that Lincoln won for what would have been his second term.
Speaker 1: He was also one of the founders of the Concordia Society,
Speaker 1: which began in January of eighteen sixty five, which was
Speaker 1: a place where Jewish leaders and professionals could gather for
Speaker 1: social and educational events. Strauss was the club's first vice president. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was another one of those institutions that was really
Speaker 1: forward facing in terms of looking to the future. They
Speaker 1: also wanted to make sure that young Jewish professionals could
Speaker 1: come in and learn from mentors and get a support
Speaker 1: system to help them succeed, and he became increasingly involved
Speaker 1: in community government and politics over the years. He seemed
Speaker 1: to think it was his responsibility as a successful person.
Speaker 1: He was a vocal supporter of the Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty
Speaker 1: of eighteen seventy five, which removed tariffs on goods traded
Speaker 1: between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the US, and he
Speaker 1: also advocated for building regulations that would reduce the risk
Speaker 1: of fire spreading in the increasingly tightly packed city. He
Speaker 1: had had some fires himself that impacted his properties, and
Speaker 1: so of course those efforts had benefit to other people,
Speaker 1: but they also benefited his personal business. He also drummed
Speaker 1: up donations for the Garfield Monument Fund Association, donated to orphanages,
Speaker 1: and helped set up the Labor Exchange, which was a
Speaker 1: group that was intended to help the unemployed men of
Speaker 1: the city make connections to find temporary and permanent work.
Speaker 1: He also became heavily involved in the Society for the
Speaker 1: Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which was incorporated in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six. He served in one leadership role or another
Speaker 1: with the organization for the rest of his life. That
Speaker 1: was a particularly important one to him, and as the
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties had moved on, Strauss had stayed busy, even
Speaker 1: though he was going through a lot of family tragedy
Speaker 1: at the time. He was working with other merchants and
Speaker 1: civic leaders to actualize infrastructure projects, including a railroad to
Speaker 1: compete with the Southern Pacific. He knew that as city
Speaker 1: that was appealing to new residents would mean sustained growth
Speaker 1: for the businesses there, so he was constantly donating both
Speaker 1: his personal money and on behalf of Levi Straussing Company
Speaker 1: to the creation of things like parks or the improvement
Speaker 1: of public spaces, and he supported efforts like the Pioneer
Speaker 1: Kindergarten Society because he knew that educating children was a
Speaker 1: vital part of making a future for the city. He
Speaker 1: was not only interested in early childhood education, though, He
Speaker 1: also donated to the University of California, Berkeley so they
Speaker 1: could keep their library open longer hours, and he created
Speaker 1: a scholarship fund at that school that Levi Straus Scholarship
Speaker 1: continues to this day. One of Strauss's employees named Henry Richmond,
Speaker 1: later wrote of him quote, mister Strauss was very quiet, affable,
Speaker 1: always immaculately dressed. Yeah, and he apparently did not like
Speaker 1: to be called mister Strauss. He wanted everybody to just
Speaker 1: call him Levi. He seems like a lovely, lovely gentleman.
Speaker 1: And I also wanted to include as our final note
Speaker 1: a point of trivia really to one of our previous episodes,
Speaker 1: because Levi Strauss was a founding member of the Pacific
Speaker 1: Coast Auxiliary of the Jewish Publication Society of America, and
Speaker 1: another member of that group was Ferdinand Toklas, father of
Speaker 1: Alice B. Toklas. It's one of those moments where you
Speaker 1: just see all the history puzzle pieces starting to click together.
Speaker 1: It's all connected, yes, And Levi Strauss is so connected
Speaker 1: in many ways like that to California history because you know,
Speaker 1: he was on all sorts of like public works committees
Speaker 1: and efforts with you know, people like Stanford and other
Speaker 1: famed people that really formed a lot of the foundation
Speaker 1: of California as we know it today. Yeah, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode
Speaker 1: is out of the archive, if you heard an email
Speaker 1: address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the
Speaker 1: course of the show, that could be obsolete. Now. Our
Speaker 1: current email address is History Podcast at I heartradio dot com.
Speaker 1: Our old house stuffworks, email address no longer works. You
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