The history of blue jeans can be traced to two men— Levi Strauss (1829-1902), a German who emigrated to the United States as a young boy, and the lesser known Latvian Jacob Davis (1834-1908), who moved to the United States in 1854.
In 1853 Levi Strauss moved to San Francisco where he set up a company, Levi Strauss & Co., selling buttons, scissors, bolts of cloth, and canvas. He also designed heavy-duty canvas work overalls for local miners. When his canvas supplies ran out, he began using heavyweight cotton twill, later known as denim. One of Strauss' customers was a tailor, Jacob Davis, who also made work trousers. His clients were complaining that the pockets kept ripping out, so Davis devised a method of strengthening the pocket corners and fly fastenings with metal rivets. This was an immediate success, but Davis did not have the money to obtain the patent,
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