Löb Strauß and his 'DENIM'

Levi Strauss, born Löb Strauß (February 26, 1829 - September 26, 1902) was the German-born American[1] creator of the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His namesake firm, Levi Strauss & Company, was founded in 1853 in San Francisco.

Levi Strauss was born on February 26,1829 to Hirsch Strauss and Rebecca Haas Strauss, both Jewish. His name at birth was Loeb, but when he immigrated to the U.S., it was changed to Levi. He was born in Buttenheim in Bavaria[2], Germany. Young Levi sailed from Bremerhaven to New York where his two older brothers, Jonas and Louis, had already established a successful wholesale textile and tailoring business. After a stay of two days in New York, he continued on to the ranch of his uncle, Daniel Goldman in Louisville, Kentucky. There he spent the next five years learning the language in order that he might someday take over his uncle's ranch.But Levi had dreams of becoming an independent businessman, and for several years he walked the roads of Kentucky, selling cloth and notions from the pack on his back.
In 1847, Strauss, his mother and two sisters moved to New York City to join his brothers Jonas and Louis Löb in their dry goods business. By 1850 he had adopted the name "Levi Strauss".

Strauss and his brother-in-law David Stern opened a dry goods wholesale business called Levi Strauss & Co. Levi, estimated at about 5' 11" and 185 pounds, was often found leading a pack-horse, heavily laden with merchandise, directly into the mining camps found throughout the region. The story goes that both prospectors and miners, often complaining about the easily torn cotton "britches" and pockets that "split right out" gave Levi the idea to make a rugged overall trouser for the miners to wear.These were fashioned from bolts of brown canvas sailcloth, with gold ore storage pockets that were nearly impossible to split. Levi exhausted his original supply of canvas as the demand grew for his hard-wearing overalls, and so he switched to a sturdy fabric called serge, made in Nimes, France by the Andre family. Originally called serge de Nimes, the name was soon shortened to denim.

In 1872, Levi received a letter from Jacob Davis, a Reno, Nevada tailor. Jacob W. Davis (born as Jacob Youphes) was a Jewish tailor from Latvia. Davis was one of Levi Strauss' regular customers, who purchased bolts of cloth from the company to use for his own business. In this letter, Davis told Levi about the interesting way in which he made pants for his customers: he placed metal rivets at the points of strain—pocket corners and on the base of the fly. As he did not have the money to patent his process he suggested that Levi pay for the paperwork and that they take out the patent together.
On May 20, 1873, Strauss and Davis received United States patent #139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the first of the famous Levi's brand of jeans in San Francisco, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Levi Strauss died on September 26, 1902 and was buried in Colma. He left his thriving manufacturing and dry goods business to his four nephews—Jacob, Louis, Abraham and Sigmund Stern—who helped rebuild the company after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The following year, Jacob Davis sold back his share of the company.
Levi Strauss, a farmernadrág megalkotója
1902. szeptember 26-án váratlanul meghalt San Franciscóban a német származású Levi Strauss, a farmernadrág kitalálója. Az első farmerek barna színűek voltak és hózentrágerrel hordták. 1829-ben, a Bamberg környéki Butterheimban született Levi Strauss, a farmernadrág megalkotója. Az eredetileg Löb Strauss néven született fiú nagyon szegény német, zsidó családban nőtt fel. Miután az édesapja meghalt, a megélhetési problémákkal küzdő anya úgy döntött, hogy gyermekeivel együtt Amerikában próbál szerencsét.Itt vette kezdetét Levi Strauss textilipari pályafutása. Először New Yorkban testvérei rövidáru üzletében dolgozott, majd az aranyláz kitörését követően San Franciscóba utazott, ahol saját boltot nyitott. Az üzlet főprofilja a textileladás volt, de árult még fogkefét, gombokat, hózentrágert (nadrágtartó) és ünnepi ruhát is. Itt San Franciscóban pattant ki a fejéből a forradalmi ötlet: a kemény munkát végző aranyásók számára strapabíró nadrágot kell készíteni. Az első általa elképzelt nadrágot egy ottani szabóval sátoranyagból varratta meg. A történet szerint az első ilyen nadrág megvásárlója olyan boldog volt, hogy egész éjszaka fel s alá járkált a városban és mindenkinek a modern nadrágjával dicsekedett. Az első nadrágok barna színűek voltak és hózentráger tartotta őket. Később Strauss átállt az erősebb denim anyagból készült farmerek készítésére. Az indigo színűre festett pamut anyagból varrt nadrágok pillanatok alatt osztatlan sikert arattak. Strauss 1873-ban szabadalmi jogot jelentett be a farmernadrágra, majd 17 évvel később megalapította a Levi & Strauss Company-t. A német származású Levi Strauss 1902. szeptember 26-án san franciscói házában váratlanul halt meg. Mivel nem volt gyermeke, ezért a sikeres vállalkozását négy unokaöccse örökölte.