Happy 150th patent-versary to rivets!

On May 20, 1873, Jacob W. Davis received patent #139,121 for an “improvement in fastening pocket openings.”

Less than a year later, on January 31, 1874, Davis and his partner, Levi Strauss, filed a suit for patent infringement against A. B. Elfelt et al., claiming damages of $20,000. The court decided for the plaintiffs but awarded Davis and Strauss only $2,000.

In his deposition, Davis recounts the story of how he came to first use rivets on work pants.

In January 1871, a woman asked him to make a pair of pants for her husband and to make them strong. Before working on the pants, he had been using rivets to attach straps to horse blankets, and when he noticed the rivets lying on the table, he decided to use them to attach the pockets.

After making a handful here and there, larger orders began to come in as other laborers noticed the quality of the pants. The cloth for the pants came from a supply store in San Francisco and its owner, Levi Strauss, was the first person that Davis told about his new invention.

Strauss and Davis decided to partner and patented the invention for "fastening pocket-openings" under both of their names.

Rivets have been part of fashion history ever since!

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Image 1: Patent Drawing for J. W. Davis's Fastening Pocket-Openings, 5/20/1873. National Archives identifier 5928292

Image 2: Page 7 from Jacob Davis’s deposition in the case alleging infringement of his patent for an “improvement in fastening pocket openings,” 1874. National Archives identifier 295938

Image 3: Male 4-H members play tug-of-war at a fair, 1940. National Archives identifier 45641105

Image 4: President Ronald Reagan chopping wood at Rancho Del Cielo, November 24, 1981. National Archives identifier 75856523

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