What piece of
clothing is everyone wearing, from little kids to seniors?
Blue jeans! Most people know so little about
where they came from and what they were used for.
Here is a short article all about the origins
of jeans.
Who invented the famous American blue jeans? It
was a man named Levi Strauss. Strauss was a
German-Jewish immigrant who founded the first company to
manufacture blue jeans in San Francisco, California in 1853.
During the gold rush days in California, this fabric merchant
used a heavy blue fabric to make work pants for the gold miners.
This fabric came from Genoa, Italy, where it was used to make
pants for the sailors. The fabric, known as "Genoa’s" was
pronounced in English as "jeans".
This extremely strong fabric didn’t shrink or fade, and it
almost became a "second skin". Jeans were worn by miners and
cowboys and even the soldiers in the Civil War.
As orders continually increased, this fabric from Genoa became
scarce, so it was substituted by a cotton fabric dyed the same
colour blue and manufactured in Nìmes, France, where it derived
its name, "denim".
Apart from being an interesting article to read,
the students can use it in different ways.
1. they can make up questions from the information
2. they can make up a dialogue between 2 persons
3. they can research information regarding Levi Strauss
and how his name is still a famous brand of
jeans…..Levi’s.
4. Look up some Levi jeans ads on internet. How is the
market for jeans doing today
A Nice Thought
"Souls in Heaven wouldn’t wear suits and
ties, they’d wear blue jeans while sitting cross-legged on
clouds"