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["Jerry W. Shepperd" <shepperd AT mail2.pvco.net>]

At 03:30 PM 10/30/2008, Don  Bowen wrote:
> Levi Strauss & Co started in San Francisco and were making pants for the
> gold rush miners.  They used a Genoan sail cloth riveted in strategic places
> to make a pair of work pants that were sturdy enough to stand up to heavy
> mining work.  A mispronouncing of Genoan leads to Jeans.

Don,

That is the story popularized by Levi Strauss' advertising.  The 
actual story is that Levi Strauss did not arrive in San Francisco 
until 1853.  For the first 20 years, the company sold wholesale dry 
goods, but not clothing.  A Las Vegas tailor of Latvian origin, Jacob 
Davis, made work pants, and came up with the idea of using rivets to 
reinforce the strain points on pants.  However, he could not afford 
the patent fee, so talked Levi Strauss, from whom he bought his 
cloth, into becoming partners on the idea.  The patent was issued in 
1873.  While Jacob Davis had made pants with rivets, initially, the 
Levi Strauss company, when it did start making clothing, made only 
bib overalls.

Lynn Downey, Levi Strauss & Co.
Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing Co. (2007)

Sondra Henry and Emily Taitz, Everyone Wears His Name: A Biography of 
Levi Strauss
Minneapolis: Dillon Press (1990)