Jeans of the Old West

Harris, a collector of denim, narrates the early days of jeans in a comprehensive book that also reveals the history of immigration and the old west. Gold and silver discoveries in California in the mid-19th century created a new market in the west for durable clothing, and San Francisco clothiers thrived. Jewish immigrants, primarily from Eastern Europe, set up stores and began manufacturing goods to compete with items sent from the east by ship, a slow and costly process. When Jacob Davis, a tailor working out of a shop in Reno, Nev., decided to use rivets in pants, he made fashion history. He knew he needed a partner with the funds to defend his patent; the patents for jeans and ways to improve them—such as Davis’s riveted jeans or a Yung Chow’s pocket rims lined with cord—were regularly infringed upon, requiring lawsuits be filed against offenders. Davis linked up with Levi Strauss and made clothing history. Pages of photos of clothing, the old west, and patent drawings fill this book along with Harris’s lovingly detailed descriptions of the differences in jeans and manufacturers. Fashion historians and Americana enthusiasts will love this, as will anyone fascinated by how commonplace items come to be. (Oct.)