Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis Patent Riveted Denim Pants
Poet involved
What happened
On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received U.S. Patent No. 139,121 for an 'Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings'—the metal rivets that reinforced stress points on work pants. The innovation, initially applied to denim and duck cloth trousers, created what would become known as blue jeans. The patent marked the birth of the modern jeans industry and established San Francisco as the epicenter of denim manufacturing.
Literary impact
The patenting of riveted jeans gave material form to the American ideals of ingenuity and practicality, themes that would be celebrated in the poetry of the Progressive Era. While no immediate poetic response occurred, the image of the riveted work pant would later appear in the industrial landscapes of Carl Sandburg and the proletarian verses of the 1930s. The event also marked the entry of denim into the realm of intellectual property, a concept that poets from Walt Whitman to Wallace Stevens have explored as a metaphor for creative ownership.
Source: Wikipedia
