Saturday, December 8, 2012  Sepia Saturday 155; Blue and famous;
In 1873 Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received a U.S.
patent to make the first riveted men's work pants out of denim:
the first blue jeans.   Jacob Davis, a Jewish emigrant from
Latvia, was a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth
made from hemp from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house. After
one of Davis' customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn
pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the
points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base
of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to
purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they
go into business together. After Levi accepted Jacob's offer, on
May 20, 1873, the two men received U.S. Patent 139,121 from the
United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patented rivet
was later incorporated into the company's jean design and
advertisements. Contrary to an advertising campaign suggesting
that Levi Strauss sold his