The History of Blue Jeans

If you’re like most Americans – or most people on earth – you have a pair of jeans, or maybe five, in your wardrobe. There’s a decent chance you’re wearing jeans right now. These humble pants were invented by a Reno tailor in the 1870s in response to a frustrated customer whose husband kept wearing through his pants too quickly. How, then, did they become a global phenomenon expected to exceed $100 billion in sales by 2025? Joining me to help answer that question is historian, writer, and screenwriter, Dr. Carolyn Purnell, author of Blue Jeans.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Blue Jeans,” composed by Josef Pasternack and performed by the Peerless Quartet in 1921; audio is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is “Five Idaho farmers, members of Ola self-help sawmill co-op, in the woods standing against a load of logs ready to go down to their mill about three miles away,” photographed by Dorothea Lange in Gem County, Idaho, in October 1939 for the Farm Security Administration; the image is in the public domain and available via the Library of Congress.

Additional Sources:

“The Origin of Blue Jeans,” by Joseph Stromberg, Smithsonian Magazine, September 26, 2011.
“The History of Denim,” Levi Strauss & Co., July 4, 2019.
“Riveted: The History of Jeans [video],” PBS American Experience Season 34, Episode 1, February 7, 2022.
“Durable and enduring, blue jeans turn 150,” by Jessica Green, NPR Weekend Edition Sunday, May 23, 2023.
“Behind 150 years of the world’s most famous denim jeans,” by Gordon Ng, Vogue Singapore, May 3, 2023.
“How Denim Became a Political Symbol of the 1960s,” by Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, December 2020.
“Throwback Thursday: Levi’s — Right For School?” Levi Strauss & Co., September 24, 2015.