Levi Strauss biography

The origin and history of the blue jeans

Levi Strauss is the man known as the person who gave blue jeans to our word, this phenomenal jean inventor was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1829; with a tough life as a kid, he became orphan at the age of 16 and this fact made him joy his brothers and sisters who lived in United States. In 1843, this young man sailed to New York to see his older brothers Louis and Jonas, leaving behind his native town. His brothers had already established a successful textile factory and were also involved in tailoring business; after spending 2 days in New York he decide to leave for the ranch of his uncle in Kentucky where he spent his next five years learning English and the customs of his new homeland with the aim of, someday, take over the ranch by himself. But Levi Strauss was not a villager, he had dreams of becoming an independent businessman, And for several years he spent days walking the streets of Kentucky selling cloth from the pack of his back. He returned to New York in 1853, since he had heard reports of gold being in California ; he persuaded his brothers to give him a supply of silk, luxury items and cloth which he planned to sell in places like San Francisco.

The biography of levi strauss with photos

He also took a supply of canvas, these ones were made by Germans wheelwrights in Pennsylvania. He took a ship to San Francisco in 1850 and by the time he reached California he had sold everything he had to fellow passengers, except for the canvas.
An old prospector told Levi Strauss that he must had brought a supply of pants since the prospecting of gold was tough and rough, that’s why Strauss cut his canvas and turned them into trousers which became an instant success and were known as “Levis”.
The success of this new piece of cloth was so overwhelming that he soon opened his own company named Levi Strauss and Co; the place was located in Battery Street in San Francisco. Later, in time, another prospector called Alkali Ike, would play a essential rule in the evolution of jeans; everytime he returned to Virginia City he complained to his tailor of pockets torn out from his habit of carrying things like nuggets in them.

He asked why David, his tailor, couldn’t design his pockets as strong as Strauss’. Bu there was no answer. Alkali, returned to San Francisco with the intention of copying Lev Strauss models, his tailor learnt about it and reported the situation to Strauss who applied for a patent on July 5 in 1872.
Believe it or not, Levi Strauss made money with one hand but with his other he was giving it away offering 28 scholarships at the University of California and contributing to several orphan houses of San Francisco.
His legacy was passed to four nephews, whose descendants still have control over this brand; nowadays Levi’s jeans and cloth are sold around the world and is considered one of the most prestigious, confident and lasting brands of the market.
Although his company grew in size, Levi insisted that his employees, not minding the position they had in the company, call him Levi, rather than Mrs. Strauss.

When he passed away --peacefully-- in his house at the age of 73, in the city of San Francisco, a business holiday was declared so that the company’s business leaders could attend to his funeral et the Emanu-el Temple. After the service, his employees accompanied the coffin to the railway station, place in where the coffin remained till it was buried in the Jewish Cemetery, in Colma, a San Francisco town. We could define Levi Strauss as a man of integrity, a fighter who went trough rough times when he was a kid, but he learnt how to survive and little by little he evolved in the world of business. People who knew him, affirmed that what made Levi Strauss to become a legend was his sense of work and progress as well as his intelligence. Taking advantages of an unusual situation, Levi he was wise enough to build an empire by designing durable jeans, but not only was the design that gave Strauss this popularity, also his persistence, always trying to improve his models and the quality of his products, later designing other type of cloth like Jackets, t-shirts, socks, etc. The reputation of Levi Strauss grew as his company did, today we can find his legacy in the streets of every city or town, no matter what language we speak or what customs we have, his jeans are wore by different cultures with the same reputation in each region. This is a guarantee that Levi Strauss products will be remembered forever.