Blue Jeans

Blue jeans are the all-American, all-purpose clothing. Farmers and laborers wear them to work in. Children wear them to play in. Teenagers and adults wear them to look fashionable. Before the 1950's, blue jeans were popular only in the West and the Southwest. Today almost every one wears them.

Levi Strauss Company makes about one-third of all the jeans in the United States and about one-seventh of those in other countries. In fact, for a long time, people used the word Levi's as a synonym for blue jeans. That's because Levi's were the first jeans ever made. Their inventor was a German immigrant named Levi Strauss.

Levi Strauss left Germany in 1848, when he was a young man. He came to New York City to be near his two brothers. For two years, he was a door-to-door salesman. He worked hard, but he didn't make much money. Then like many other Easterners, he decided to go to San Francisco.

When Levi went West, he brought some canvas with him. He wanted to sell it to the gold miners for making tents. His canvas was the wrong kind for tents, but Levi found another use for it. A miner told Levi that he needed a strong pair of pants because digging for gold was hard work. When Levi heard that, he made him a pair of canvas pants. The miner paid Levi $6 in gold dust and told the others about "those pants of Levi's". Levi quickly sold a lot of pants, but he ran out of canvas. He wrote to his brothers in New York City and told them to send more. Instead, they sent him some heavy cotton cloth called denim. Much of this kind of cloth came from Genes (the French name for the city of Genoa, Italy). Levi changed the spelling of Genes into jeans. He also dyed the denim blue. He called his new pants blue jeans.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why was the word "Levi's" used as a synonym for blue jeans for a long time?
2. What was the purpose of Levi Strauss' moving from Germany to the US?
3. Which language is the word "jeans" from?
4. Why did Levi Strauss go west?
5. What are blue jeans made of?

(Keys.)