PODCAST

The speaker discusses the importance of covering the history of denim and jeans in a class on American Studies. They mention that Levi Strauss, who is credited with inventing jeans, represents the American dream and philanthropy. They also highlight the role of enslaved people in denim production and the evolving symbolism of jeans in American culture. The origins of denim are traced to India, Italy, and France, with the cloth being used for work pants. The indigo dyeing process is discussed, including its significance in African cultures and its connection to the labor of enslaved people. The speaker acknowledges the need for further research on the cultural impact of indigo dyeing on enslaved laborers. I do have a list of questions that I want to go through. You might answer two in one and I just might be some repeating honestly. I'm ready, I think. I just want to start off by asking what made you want to cover the content for the class and why you think it is important and why people should learn about the history of denim and jeans? Yeah, that's a great question. I decided to include it because the classes on American Studies and denim, or jeans especially, are just so American. This idea of Levi's just becomes this really quintessential American garment. Now of course it's around the globe now, but I think if Americans have a uniform, so to speak, or the go-to clothes, I feel like jeans kind of is that thing. I picked it because of that, but also because it gives us the opportunity in the class to look at the story of denim from a lot of different perspectives. I start with teaching a podcast about Levi Strauss, who essentially gets credited with inventing jeans. We start with that and then we move into, okay, let's look at other people that made major contributions to the development of the garment. Also, Levi Strauss gives us an opportunity to talk about the American dream, especially for an immigrant coming to the United States. He's coming from Bavaria, Germany, and he was leaving Germany to escape persecution. He's Jewish, he was Jewish, and so he was looking to avoid some of the anti-Semitic discrimination that he was facing there. He really is sort of like this rags to riches story. He comes to the United States and his family opens this dry goods business in New York, and then he goes to California. I think that he's making essentially millions, and he's able to contribute. I also like the idea that he does it, that they talk about in the podcast, that he gave back to his community a lot. He was involved in a lot of charitable work, and so it just ties to that concept of the American dream. The flip side of that is, what about enslaved people that were involved in the production of denim, or who used denim as work pants, or the dyeing process for denim? I also, you said that you looked at that documentary, and I found it interesting, too, how jeans were used at different times to symbolize different things in America. I mean, you go from, it's this symbol of rebellion, to no, no, no, it's okay, good kids wear jeans kind of thing, to it becoming, even in that documentary during the Civil Rights Movement, where it becomes something where civil rights activists can wear jeans in solidarity with the working class, and not be able to show connections there. I think, I might be rambling a bit, I think it's because they give us the opportunity to talk about so many different aspects of American culture. We can look at slavery, we can look at economics, we can look at music, we can look at fashion, we can look at social justice. There's just so many possibilities in this one garment. That really opened up the conversation for a lot of questions I have already. My next question is, would you be able to walk through the origins of denim and its early uses, and possibly focusing on, I know the documentary mentioned India, Italy, and France, with their early history? Yeah, so, what I know is based on that documentary, and the idea that this thick, kind of durable cloth was used in different places around the world. Oh my gosh, what, they called it, there was a word for it, I don't know, I can't think of the name of it. But basically, this thick, durable cloth. So, Dungaree, India, was one place where this thick cloth was being made. Genoa, Italy, was used for like a sail cloth for ships. And then, Nimes, France. So, the word Serge, the Nimes, meaning was denim, essentially, that's what we call it. I think of it, this cloth, the best I can connect it to would be, you know, like a thick, heavy canvas tote bag, maybe, that is similar to that, in texture and durability. And then, that same cloth was used in the United States for work pants, and a lot of the history suggests that that heavy duty cloth was used for work pants, especially for enslaved people because of the durability of it. And so, there's those connections there between slavery in the United States and the way that this durable cloth was being used. But also, the working class and folks that were involved in hard, sort of manual labor that needed something to hold up to that kind of daily wear and tear. One of the aspects that I found interesting is the use of the indigo and dyeing the fabric. Can you elaborate on the process a little bit, by any chance? By any chance, I know what I, I'm surprised when watching the documentary, knowing that it was green and saying that it comes out blue after it's been out. Also, as well as how the fierce competition with the indigo led to it being even called the devil's dye, too. Yes, so the indigo dyeing process, I agree with you. In that documentary, they show a picture of a vat of indigo dye, and it's green. And when the fabric comes out of the dye, it's also green, but when it oxidizes, it turns that deep color blue that we recognize. So indigo, I didn't know this until I started teaching this, the indigo plant is something that was brought into southern crop production in the southern United States because it was a profitable crop. I wasn't aware, when I think of southern, 1800s southern agriculture, I typically think of cotton and tobacco, but apparently indigo was a major source of income for southern crop plantations and farmers. So the, there's a woman, Eliza Lucas Pickley, she is often credited with kind of expanding the indigo market, if you will, or research and production of indigo in the United States. And she, her family was quite wealthy, and she was growing seeds and crops from different places around the world. And indigo became one of those big cash crops. You know, Eliza Lucas gets the credit, but as they say in the documentary, you know, her hands weren't blue. It wasn't her hands that were doing the actual work. And that sort of infers people who are often enslaved or working to try to, you know, support themselves, but she's the one that gets the credit. I had a question later on that I was going to ask about Eliza. I know there was a problem with the significance of indigo cloth in Africa, so much that it was considered the next layer to the skin, holding the soul. How do you think this cultural significance influenced the labor production process involving enslaved people in the dye making industry? Gosh, that's a really good question. I think it might be speculative. I would have to think about that a lot. But certainly, so yeah, in Africa, in many African cultures, in different parts of Africa, fabric was considered something that sort of was like a second skin, or I think they say in the documentary, like holds in the soul, like you said. To me, culturally, that seems not just valuable, but almost sacred, right? That holding in the soul, that seems big. And so I imagine that the knowledge to dye fabric a very specific color, and that it's not an easy process in terms of indigo dye, which is what's been indicated to me, I have no experience with using indigo dye, but that it's not a sure thing, like it is more complex process. It would seem to me that those things would hold a lot of weight, culturally, if that's your background, right? And so I imagine that that value doesn't get lost in the transatlantic slave trade, right? That people are going to hold on to those values and the meaning behind those values, even if they are forcibly removed from their homes and taken someplace else. So I don't know if I could take the jump from how that then becomes important in white, sort of Euro-American culture, but I'm sure that it's not a connection, it's not an importance that gets erased in people who are then forcibly relocated. So I imagine that those values would still be there. Does it track onto the sort of Euro-American white values of the 19th century? Possibly. I would have to think about that a lot more. I don't know if I answered your question. Can you say it again? Yeah, I can think about it. I think what you're saying is still important, too. How do you think this cultural significance influenced the labor and production process involving enslaved people in the dye-making industry? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to think of myself. If I had something that was incredibly meaningful, and it's not spiritual for me, and I was being forced to do it for someone else, or someone else was taking credit for it, I'm not sure that would be a great feeling. But I also don't know that that would change its meaning for me. I don't think so. Yeah, definitely. That's a hard question. I mean, it's a great question, but it's a hard question. I would probably need to do more reading to answer that fairly, and I don't know that it's ever going to not be subjective through me. I wonder if there are narratives or slave narratives that talk about it, if you could find information. I mean, there are a lot of different slave narratives that exist where enslaved people talked about their experiences or, you know, that shared their ideas. I wonder if there's anything that talks about indigo and the idea of indigo and cloth and how it's being used along with their knowledge in what is the United States. I don't know. I bet there's something out there, but I don't know where to start. One of the women in the documentary, I would have to watch it again, but I can picture her and be able to pull her out. You might be able to look and see if she's published anything just by looking up her name. She seemed very knowledgeable about the process of the indigo dyeing process, but also of the people that were involved in that and the knowledge. So, it's a possibility if you're interested. Excellent. Thanks for trying your best to answer. I also wanted to delve into Jacob Davis and his pioneering of using rivets for durability in jeans. Can you walk us through how his collaboration with Levi to dry goods supplier influenced the trajectory of denim production and the popularity of it? Yeah. So, the story goes that a customer of Jacob Davis kept ripping his pants or his pants weren't durable, and so Davis decided to try these rivets, which are essentially those little brass things that we look at on jeans today, and to try to use those to reinforce areas of high stress on jeans. Apparently, that went well, and people liked the product and felt that those rivets made the product more durable or longer lasting, less likely to rip in those places. But Davis felt that he didn't have the means or maybe the time and investment to get a patent on that and kind of upscale his business and be able to sell these in a larger market. So, he asked his dry goods supplier, who was Levi Strauss, if he wanted to go in with him and apply for the patent. Now, it's kind of unique because Davis is essentially giving this idea to someone else with no guarantee that this other person is going to be honest and genuine and give Davis credit for it, but he did. And so, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis earned a patent on this garment. It was the rivets specifically that made it patentable, and from there, they began mass-producing what would have been called waste overalls. Today, we call them jeans. Essentially, a waste overall is just, think of overalls, bib overalls, without the top part. So, waste overalls that seem to take off from there, from that collaboration. Levi Strauss, we think of Levi's denim. He maybe is what sort of saw it come to fruition, but we wouldn't have those riveted pants without Davis's idea. I didn't realize the detail of my jeans. I was watching the documentary, and I looked down, and I was like, yeah, I don't think I would be wearing these as often without these. Well, especially if you're wearing them in a work environment. I mean, I can wear jeans out over time, but I'm not digging in the dirt or working in a mine or things that are going to be really hard on any kind of fabric. I was also intrigued by the evolving perception of the jeans, especially the romanticized view of it. Individuals wearing them in the late 19th century and during times like the gold rush, could you share insights on how this romanticized image contributed to the overall theme? The cultural significance of jeans during that time, even now? Yes. We said this earlier, but predominantly they just started as a durable work pant, so very much for the working class or people that were doing a lot of physical labor are going to be wearing them. Let's see, so during the gold rush and then up through the turn of the 20th century, they're still going to be that durable work pant. It starts to change a little bit with the idea of people who aren't of the working class wanting to have that kind of freedom and appeal in a garment. The documentary Riveted, it talks about the dude ranch and the popularity of the dude ranch around the turn of the 20th century. The dude ranch is essentially a ranch where predominantly wealthy white folks come and live and work on the ranch as a kind of vacation, I guess. Women at that time, especially, liked the freedom that pants gave them and that was an environment where they could wear pants. I think freedom of physical movement, but also freedom, a kind of psychological freedom or empowerment that comes from wearing pants. The documentary talks about how they basically become kind of a souvenir of going to the dude ranch, so people would wear their jeans in other contexts to show, like, hey, look, I did this work or this is something that I was able to do. It started to make a bit of a shift from just durable work pants to showing off that wealthy people were able to take that time and spend it on a ranch as they wanted to and then come back into their, quote, unquote, regular society and still be able to wear those pants. I would like to know more about that, actually, because I see the idea, but I feel like I would like to know more about how it really infiltrated a larger kind of mass society away from those dude ranches, and I'm not sure about that. I saw that the evolution of denim allowed for it to be more culturally acceptable for women to wear pants and jeans. I feel like watching the documentary, I feel like that will also help lead it to be more fashionable, too, as well. But I have, how do you, sorry. Go ahead, baby. How do you personally think that this later transformed denim and jeans into the fashion, or from working men to leisure class? Or I guess you covered that, as well as how has denim been used to make a statement or convey a particular cultural or social identity in these different areas? Especially around the Second World War, denim was worn a lot by U.S. soldiers. And I think it's really interesting because this is where you see denim being this kind of utilitarian pant for, again, soldiers or sailors that are working a lot and doing a lot of physical labor. And then they're wearing them in different parts of the world, and people are seeing that as an American thing, or sort of this cool American thing. And I think that's where jeans or denim start to sort of trickle out of the United States and become more global. But, you know, even with that, there's still a lot that kind of has to happen back in the U.S. before jeans start to change from strictly workwear to something that becomes more fashionable, right? And there's a lot of different influences there. So the military influence, I think, is certainly something. There's this idea of the 50s and maybe early 60s sort of bad boy image of a motorcycle gang and wearing jeans. And that got culturally associated with sort of negative connotations. And the denim industry launched this huge campaign to try to change that perception, obviously because they want to sell more pants. And so then you see a little bit of a shift there of people trying to figure out where to place denim. Is it in the sort of good category or the negative category? I think the documentary mentions JFK, President Kennedy's, oh my gosh, what was that organization? It's Kennedy, it's like a volunteer organization. Hold on, I'm going to look this up because I can't remember. I know it covered that there was a denim council. Yeah, they did a lot of advertising to try to get people to think of denim as a positive thing and not have that negative connotation. Peace Corps, I don't know why that was so hard for me to think of. So when JFK launched the Peace Corps in 1961, the official uniform included jeans, pants. And so that gets marked as a real moment of, okay, we're trying to have this article of clothing have a much more wholesome appearance to it. Along with soldiers and the rebels, I wanted to shed light on the other diverse social contexts surrounding denim. Or how did the portrayal of cowboys and the association of jeans with the wild west influence their cultural symbolism and adoption into these various communities, including those of black and Mexican cowboys? Yeah, so I know that we, like I teach about this idea of the American cowboy, the archetype of the cowboy that we can all think of and we might all describe with cowboy boots and jeans and a lasso or a big brimmed hat, all those things that come to mind. Many of them have their origins, not in American culture, but in Mexican culture. And that Mexican culture was influenced by Spanish culture. The Spanish were and still have deep roots with equestrian horsemanship. And so things like the large brimmed hat, chaps, lariat, the cowboy boots, the things that we tend to, sitting here today, think of as the wild west or the American cowboy, actually is probably most heavily influenced by Mexican culture. Also, the cowboy, you know, that cowboy archetype tends to be remembered in the United States as a white archetype, like a white character, if you will. And we talk about in my class that anywhere from a quarter to over a third of cowboys in the west, so the late, mid to late 19th century, were people of color. So many of them were black or Mexican. But there was a huge population, like I said, estimates are uncertain for different reasons, but maybe up to about 35%, 40% potentially is the higher numbers that I've seen, 25% are some of the lower ones. Estimate that cowboys during that time period, that 35%, 40% were probably black. There was a definite connection to freedom and autonomy too. So post-Civil War, U.S. during Reconstruction, a lot of formerly enslaved men, young men especially, were looking to kind of set out and the independence and autonomy that being a cowboy allowed, I think gave them something that they were looking for, for sure. And also, you know, being able to use skills that were in demand, that were valuable. Very interesting. I remember Sherry telling me that. I was like, yeah, I'm interested. There's some really neat stuff like, so the Lone Ranger is, you know, a sort of popular TV character, and then movies have been made about him, what was like Johnny Depp, I think did some movie like back in the 90s or something. Lone Ranger being this law enforcement officer, and he's always portrayed as white in the television shows, but the real actual person that the character was based off of, he was a black cowboy. His name was Bass Reeves. And, you know, there's a lot of, there's some deep digging there we could do, but, you know, I don't think it, it doesn't take much to figure out why predominantly white audiences wouldn't want to see a black sheriff or a black person, you know, enforcing the law. I think that would have made a lot of audiences uncomfortable, and so decisions were made by media and entertainment companies to change his race. He's a neat character, though. He has the coolest mustache. Let me show you. I did not know that. Yeah. He was among the first black U.S. Marshals. I can't remember. He was said to have arrested, oh, it was like thousands of people. I mean, he was, he was, he was a really neat character. Born into slavery in 1838. Yeah. He has a neat, he has a neat story. It's very interesting. Thank you for that. Yeah. I know you went over the symbols of youth rebellion in the 1900s. I also want to discuss, or the significance of denim as their symbol of youth rebellion, sorry, and especially like in the context of the hippie movement. And it's used as a form of political activism and self-expression. How do you think denim played a role in major historical movements? That's another really good question. I think denim offered people a kind of, I don't know, I think denim offered people, some people like sort of a blank slate in terms of what you could do to personalize denim. And when I say that, I mean, I'm just thinking of, like I think of the ways that in the 60s or like that hippie culture maybe would have embellished denim or patches that would have been put on it. Or I can picture images from different protests or Woodstock that the documentary talks about where people have like sewn ribbon down the side of the seam or something and like where you can take this rather blank canvas and like make it your own. And I mean, I remember doing stuff like ripping my jeans in a certain way and I just felt like, okay, that was like my stamp, you know. Or even if you walk around campus today, I mean, I'm sure like people might feel attached or that their identity gets reflected in a specific way in the way that they're wearing their denim. So I think the 60s and the hippie culture just gave people an opportunity to really expand on that, right? And hippie culture embraced that difference and that idea of like, you know, something being different and unique and it was okay if it was loud and a little bit crazy, I think for a lot of folks. I don't know, I see that as this opportunity of I'm going to make it mine in a lot of ways. I did some research for my law school on this and looking at like the images of how they had their self-expression on their denim and like jeans or like jackets is really nice compared to like now too because it's very similar. Yeah, being jackets, I mean, being able to put patches on them or, you know, dye them or embellish them in certain ways or, yeah, it becomes like your calling card, I guess, in some ways. And we all have, I mean, we all have that pair of jeans probably that we think, this is us, you know? In my documentary, the person I was doing it on, she had like at least three pairs of jeans that she was like, I cannot live without. Yeah, perfectly. Yeah. I think, lastly, are there any other lists or no historical events or like stories related to denim that you think are important? Yeah. Or like any misconceptions or little known facts too? Good question. I might, like, sort of ponder that for a bit. I think of the, I don't know, I just, I think of the ways that it has maintained this sort of classicness among American fashion, and by that I mean like a longevity, right? That it's not something that sort of came and went necessarily. Maybe like bell-bottom jeans to a certain extent, that feels very like 60s, 70s kind of thing, like 60s or 70s. But denim just, I mean, it's hung around and it just seems so ingrained in American culture at this point. We would, I talk to my, when I teach this with my students, I, you know, how many pairs of jeans do you have? And everybody has at least one pair, usually. I can remember one class where a student was like, I hate jeans, I don't have any, you know? Or the way that we're able to personalize them for different events, right? So the jeans that you might wear to run to the grocery store might not be the same jeans if you're going out on a date to a nicer restaurant or something, you know? Or even just the way that they show up in pop culture. I'm always reminded of that picture of, oh it's so cheesy, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. Do you remember? Oh yeah. Where they're wearing this denim, matching, these matching outfits. And he even has the hat. Yeah. This perfect sort of, like, we're all denim here. I just, that to me just seems very kind of perfect, little, like, early 2000s, what was this? Yeah, 2001. And the way that, if somebody showed up wearing something similar to that today, I don't know that anybody would necessarily turn their heads differently, you know? I think even, I remember a student pointed out, I don't know that I could find it, J-Lo wearing some denim outfit that was similar. The jumpsuit? Yeah. No, this isn't it. It was like in a, I thought it was in a photo shoot or something. I don't know. This is not what I was looking for. I mean, great. There's so many options now. I feel like there's like shoes and boots. The shoes that are in them. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Hats, jackets. I mean, bringing up jackets I think was really good because I wasn't even thinking that. I was very stuck on pants. But you're right. I mean, jackets or vests or hats. And the way that denim gets attached to different cultural groups, you know, it might mean one thing for people who consider themselves like Western or sort of cowboys versus somebody who thinks like, oh, I don't know, like in a more urban setting or it's like more fashion than function, if that makes sense. You don't need rough, durable pants if you're like working in an office in New York City. But you probably do if you're working on a farm in Iowa or something. So. You have great questions. Thank you. Those were my last ones. Okay. Those were perfect. Thank you so much. You're welcome. It's fun to talk to somebody outside of class.