(by Rebecca, Mr. Doi's language art class, 8th grade, May 2009)
(oral speech format)
In the Sisterhood of Traveling Pants series, the main characters’ lives are interlinked with a pair of jeans. This made me curious about the history of blue jeans.
In the 1600s, in the town of Chieri, Italy, a new type of pant, jeans, were being made. Jeans first came in two styles: indigo blue denim, and brown cotton. The brown cotton, unlike the denim, never became soft and comfortable and so eventually it stopped being used for the manufacture of jeans.
These first jeans were made for the sailors in the Genoese Navy, because these sailors needed all-purpose pants that could be worn wet or dry, and whose legs could easily be rolled up to wear while swabbing the deck, and jeans could easily do both. These pants were first called “waist overalls.” However, it wasn’t until the invention of rivets that turned these “waist overalls” into the jeans we know today.
In 1853, a 24 year old man came to San Francisco. His name was Leob Strauss, later changed to Levi Strauss. Levi, a German-Jewish man, opened a west coast branch of his brothers’ New York dry goods business.
One of his regular customers was Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth. Jacob lived in Reno, Nevada. One of his customers was a man whose pants continuously ripped. Jacob tried to think of ways to strengthen the man’s pants, and one day, after testing his idea on horse blankets, Jacob put copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, for example, on the pocket corners.
These new riveted pants were an instant hit with his customers, and Jacob starting worrying that his idea might be stolen by someone else. He wanted to apply for a patent, but didn’t have that required $68. Jacob realized he needed a business partner and immediately thought of Levi.
So in 1872, Jacob wrote to Levi suggesting the two men become business partners and hold the patent together. Levi saw the potential for this new idea, and agreed to the proposal. The two men received patent number 139,121 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on May 20, 1873. That day is considered to be the official “birthday” for jeans.
The denim for the riveted pants came from the Amoskeag Mill in Manchester, New Hampshire. This company was known for the quality of their fabric. Soon, all types of working men started buying these new pants and spreading the word about their unrivaled durability. It’s hard to believe, that back in 1885, a pair of brand new Levi’s would only cost $1.25.
Since Levi and Jacob held a patent on these pants, for nearly twenty years, their company, Levi Strauss and Co. was the only company that was allowed to make riveted clothing until the patent went into public domain. When the patent expired, dozens of garment manufacturers began to imitate the original riveted clothing.
In the 1930s, Hollywood made an amplitude of western movies involving cowboys. These cowboys often wore jeans in the movies, which helped increase the popularity of jeans. Also, many Americans in the eastern states would go on vacations at dude ranches and would take pairs of jeans back east with them when they went back home.
Not as many jeans were made during the 1940’s, the time of World War 2, but American soldiers introduced jeans to the rest of the world by wearing them when they were off duty. Levi began to sell their clothes outside the American West after the war. Wrangler and Lee, two rival companies, began to compete with Levi for a share of this new market.
Denim started becoming especially popular with the younger generation in the 1950’s. It became the symbol of teenage rebel in television programs and movies, such as in the 1955 move, Rebel Without a Cause. Teenagers and young adults in reality wore jeans as a symbol of mild protest against conformity. Some older adults considered this disruptive, and some movie theaters and restaurants refused to let customers wearing blue jeans in.
However, in the 1960’s, many, many university and college students wore jeans. Embroidered jeans and painted jeans were made to the match 60’s fashion. Jeans became a symbol of “Western decadence” and were very hard to get. People all around the world would often write letters to United States companies asking them to send a pair of jeans.
Jeans started to be made more and more in sweatshops in countries in the South during the late 1970s, as regulations on world trade became more relaxed. Jeans became cheaper because the workers were paid very little. More and more people in the countries of the South started wearing jeans. By now, the wearing of blue jeans had become general fashion in the United States, at least for informal wear.
Finally, in the 1980’s, jeans starting become high fashion clothing. This started when famous designers started making their own styles of jeans, with their own labels on them, such as Guess? , and Calvin Klein.
Today, millions of people wear jeans. Jeans have become a part of society and American today.
