Levi Strauss

Strauss left Bavaria for New York, where his older half-brothers already ran a dry-goods business, and in 1853 opened a West Coast branch in San Francisco to supply Gold Rush shops. The riveted work trousers came from a Nevada tailor, Jacob Davis, who needed a partner to pay for the patent; Strauss provided the money and distribution in 1873. Family networks and that partnership, rather than a lone genius, built Levi Strauss & Co.