Exercise #8

You probably own something that was first invented in the mid-1800s: blue jeans! When news of a big gold strike was made in California, Levi Strauss, a 20-year-old immigrant, headed west to sell canvas for tents and covered wagons. One day, a miner came up to him and said that what he really needed was pants—pants with lots of pockets. Strauss sewed up some of his canvas into a couple of pairs of pants. He called them waist overalls. All the miners liked the pants, but the canvas made their thighs chafe. So, Strauss decided to try another fabric: a twilled, dark blue cotton called Serge de Nimes, that got shortened to denim.

Text taken from p. 86 of:

Masoff, Joy. Oh, Yikes! History's Grossest, Wackiest Moments. New York: Workman, 2006. Print.

Blue jeans were invented by Levi Strauss during the nineteenth century. One day, a miner came up to him and said that what he really needed was pants—pants with lots of pockets. He made them out of canvas and later used another material that became known as denim.

Works Cited

Masoff, Joy. Oh, Yikes! History's Grossest, Wackiest Moments. New York: Workman, 2006. Print.