America’s first pair of jeans, as shown in the official patent.
On August 9, 1872, a pair of Western businessmen filed a patent. Jacob Davis, a Latvian tailor living in Reno, and Levi Strauss, a German dry-goods wholesaler in San Francisco, had come up with an idea for a new kind of denim work-pant. They wanted to sew copper rivets into the seams. These would be placed at the pant’s most vulnerable points—the corners of the pockets, for instance, or the bottom of the button fly—to prevent the fabric from tearing. This would make it more useful for workers, who needed durable clothing. Blue jeans were born.
