Blue Jean King

Levi Strauss, creator of the most popular clothing product in the world, was born in Bavaria, Germany, on this day in 1829.

In 1847, Strauss emigrated to New York with his family and learned his brothers' dry goods business. In 1853, he opened a branch of the family company in San Francisco, where he outfitted miners during the Gold Rush.

Twenty years later, in 1873, Levi and his customer, tailor Jacob Davis, received the patent for riveted denim pants. That same year, the first Levi's were manufactured from durable New Hampshire-milled cloth. The rest is, as they say, history!

The figures in Miners in the Sierras (shown above) toil for treasure in this first-known oil painting of an early gold camp—about twenty years before the introduction of Levi's.

Hawkins Bolden created the folk art scarecrow shown below with a conspicuous pair of blue jeans—an indication of their widespread popularity in contemporary U.S. culture.

Pictured top: Charles Christian Nahl, 1818 Germany–1878 USA, Miners in the Sierras, 1851–1852, oil on canvas mounted on canvas, 54 1/4 x 67 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Fred Heilbron Collection.

Pictured bottom: Hawkins Bolden, born 1914, Untitled, 1987, galvanized iron, cotton, wood, wire, straw, 38 x 17 1/2 x 44 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William Arnett.