I am referring to Levi’s, of course. Patented on May 20, 1873 by Levi Strauss, a dry goods merchant, and Jacob Davis, a tailor. Levi’s filled a need for the working man of the era – miners, cowboys, farmers – and endured to become an iconic American garment even though it was, ironically, invented by a Bavarian and a Latvian immigrant.*
Look here at an interview with Levi’s historian, Lynn Downey, in Cowboys and Indians Magazine.
*note: unless you are still living in the Great Rift Valley, you are probably the off-spring of immigrants.
Gunsmoke and Knitting 