This is an 1893 Guarantee Ticket that was originally attached to the Levi’s 501XX jeans. The phrase, “For Over 20 Years”, dates it to 1873 + 20 = 1893. The next Guarantee Ticket was issued by Levi’s in 1899 with the description of “For Over 26 Years”. The ticket guarantees that the jeans was made of premium 9 ounce denim manufactured by the Amoskeag company. The “XX” designation may have originated from Amoskeag’s labeling of its premium fabrics as “XX”. Beginning in 1890, Levi’s designated its top-of-the-line jeans as lot number 501XX in contrast with its lot number 201 which was the “No. 2” line of jeans. Prior to 1890, Levi’s had only a single line of denim jeans that was designated simply as “XX”. Levi’s continued to advertise its top-of-the-line jeans as “XX” throughout the 1890s. To differentiate its jeans during a time of increasing competition with others engaged in the mass production of a similar product, Levi’s entered the jeans in competitions including the California State Fair. The ticket celebrates the silver medal that it received for its 501XX jeans at this event in 1890. Later in 1953, Levi’s received a gold medal for its Western Wear denim clothing. The ticket also features the Two Horse Brand trademark that shows two horses pulling at the two front pockets of its jeans. This commercial symbol shows the strength of its famous rivets holding the pockets together. The last photo shows an envelope with this Two Horse Brand trademark. The envelope is postmarked with the date of 1886, which was the first year that trademark was established.

This 1930s “Buddy Lee Quartet” is a retail store display that showcases Lee 101 cowboy jeans. The Buddy Lee doll is shown with its original cardboard accessories including a guitar, banjo, harmonica, accordion, and microphone. The doll is stored in its original covered box with cardboard packaging that is stamped “Buddy Lee-C”. The letter “C” may stand for “Cowboy”. The tall cowboy hat still has its stapled paper band to maintain its shape. The jeans worn by Buddy Lee has a flattened arcuate stitching design on its back pockets, and its copper rivets lack a “Lee” inscription like those found on the Lee 101 cowboy jeans from the early 1930s. Buddy Lee was an advertisement doll for retail store displays during the 1920s-30s. Later in the 1930s, it became a popular doll sold as a child’s toy. This Buddy Lee doll is made from a composite of sawdust and resin like others from 1920-46.

This Lee men’s jeans is in the Whoopee style. It was made during the early 1930s. It has button-down pocket flaps, double-sided waist cinches, and a wide waist band with a triple-button closure. The name of this style of pants came from a jazz theme song in a popular 1928 musical play about a romantic escapade on an Arizona ranch. Other Midwestern manufacturers made jeans in the Whoopee style from the late 1920s through the 1950s including Carhartt, Crown, Headlight, and Big Smith. Lee widely advertised its Whoopee jeans from 1930-36. This exuberant style contrasts with the Western classic style of the Lee 101 and 131 cowboy pants that were contemporaneously produced. Cowboys wore Whoopee jeans as workwear, and young men also wore the same style as leisure wear often associated with swing dancing. This particular pair of jeans has an adult waist measurement of 33 inches and displays dramatic sun fades along with underlying wear. It was worn by a Montana rancher. The last photo shows Lee advertising print blocks from the 1920s.

This chambray jacket belonged to a frontier woman in the Midwest during the 1850s. Originally, the jacket was entirely hand sewn. It was subsequently repaired with crude stitching by sewing machine to hold together the pleated skirt. The chambray fabric is heavy weight and in a solid and striped indigo. It was made by handloom and has repeated small irregularities in the woven cloth. The body of the jacket consists of three panels of chambray. Measuring between the chambray selvedges, the middle panel is 14 inches wide and the other two lateral panels are 23 inches wide. These short widths are consistent with manufacture by handloom. In comparison, a machine loom created widths of 30 inches and more for this type of fabric. The upper portion of the interior jacket is lined with white linen from a feed sack, probably a flour bag. This jacket was part of a large hoard of 19th century denim workwear found in an 1853 homestead cabin by @solid.goods.vintage and @snot_fair_vintage . The hoard consisted of 13 brown denim and duck men’s pants from the 1850s through the early 1900s. The men’s jeans show a decade-by-decade evolution in the design of the Midwestern workwear. I am planning to publish a book with @endrime on the history of denim jeans. It will include additional clothing from this unique hoard, such as an 1850s brown denim jeans that was factory-made and yet entirely hand sewn. Another important historical piece from this group is an 1850s skirt made of blue denim woven by hand loom.

This pair of jeans is a 1948 men’s Wrangler 11MW with half selvedge. One side of the jeans’s outseam displays a self-finished edge, while the other edge is lock-stitched. Few Wrangler jeans have selvedge on their leg outseam, unlike early 1950s Lee jeans that are known for having half selvedge on the 101 Riders models. Only a limited number of Wrangler jeans during the late 1950s and in 1964-65 have selvedge on their outseams, usually with a green thread running through the selvedge. This is the earliest pair of Wrangler jeans that has been identified with a selvedge feature. This pair of Wrangler jeans is dated 1948 based on its narrow back pockets and the button fly. The zipper fly appeared initially in 1950 and replaced the button fly during the early 1950s. The back pockets of Wrangler jeans were narrow from 1947-48 before becoming wide in 1949 and later. This pair of jeans has narrow back pockets and a “W” stitch design on each back pocket. It dates to 1948 because the 1947 Wrangler jeans have an arcuate stitch design on the back pockets. Generally, Wrangler jeans made during the early years of production from 1947-49 were not well-standardized in the details of construction. This pair lacks a cloth tag that identifies it as a Wrangler. The lack of a cloth tag occurs in a limited number of 1947-48 Wrangler jeans. The Wrangler model identification and size of the jeans was instead printed on paper tags attached to the back pocket or waist band. The paper tags were removed from the jeans when they were worn. The watch pocket on this pair of jeans is outlined with indigo tonal stitching, rather than the usual orange thread.

These 1900s to 1910s women’s blue jeans were found in an old house in North Carolina with other clothing from this time period. Jeans from this era do not have belt loops, except for those that are riding pants or made for the military. These jeans have wood suspender buttons from that period. The second photo pictures an old photo from the late 1910s and shows women wearing similar jeans that are without belt loops and are held up by suspenders. During the First World War, women assumed major job responsibilities by working on farms and ranches in replacement of men who were recruited for military service. These blue jeans have several characteristics of being made for a woman. Early women’s jeans often have fewer pockets than men’s, and this one lacks both back pockets. These jeans have four sewn darts in the back of the pants to make them more fitted for a woman. The uneven stitching is consistent with the jeans being made by a home sewing machine and not in a factory. Homemade women’s jeans are sometimes found from this time period because of the limited availability of factory-made jeans for women. Early women’s jeans were mostly made by tailors or small manufacturers. It was not until the 1930s that major manufacturers, such as Levi’s, White Stag, and Prior, made denim jeans for women.

I enjoyed seeing “Suffs” which is a Broadway play portraying the women’s voting rights movement during the 1910s. It describes the political tensions within the suffrage movement. Carrie Chapman Catt was a trailblazer who favored a longer-term incremental strategy supporting President Wilson during the First World War. She called on women to contribute to the war effort by joining the civilian workforce depleted by military recruitment. Alice Paul was an upstart leader pushing for more immediate changes by holding protest parades. She and other compatriots were jailed for picketing at the White House gates. After the war, President Wilson reversed his opposition to women’s suffrage which favored a constitutional amendment giving voting rights to women. Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919. I admire Inez Milholland, a lawyer who gave numerous important speeches and led suffrage protest parades. She became famous for wearing white clothing while riding astride a white horse in leading the 1913 parade before President Wilson’s inauguration. All the protesters wore “suffrage white” that stood for the purity of their cause. Milholland’s last public speech concluded with her words, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” She died shortly thereafter. The 1919 women’s blue denim riding pants shown in the photographs was bleached white. It is in the classic western style with 5 metal buttons on both sides and arcuate designs on the back pockets. The watch pocket is on the left side, rather than the usual place on the right side for men’s jeans. The construction and button style is consistent with the late 1910s to early 1920s. An inside pocket pouch has “V19” printed and stamped on it. It coincides with the suffrage view of the year 1919 as the “Victory New Year” when Congress passed the 19th Amendment.

During World War 2, the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) was the first women’s group formally integrated into the US military service. This pair of jeans is the 1942 WAVES model. A famous New York fashion designer named Mainbocher oversaw the creation of Navy uniforms that were the most widely admired by those in military service. During the war, the government forbade private manufacturers from using buckle back cinches in order to conserve on clothing resources. Nevertheless, Mainbocher showed his flair for fashion even during wartime by incorporating the buckle back cinch in this pair of Navy jeans. Lee jeans received an endorsement by baseball legend, Mickey Mantle, during the 1950s. The men’s jeans are late 1930s Lee 131 Cowboy pants. The phrase “The brand that fits” on the button pin refers to the fact that Lee pre-shrunk (sanforized) its men’s jeans before selling them beginning in the 1930s, while Levi’s and most other manufacturers pre-shrunk mainly their women’s jeans. Blue Bell-Wrangler sanforized its men’s and women’s jeans from the time it began manufacturing jeans in 1947. Time to play ⚾️ !

I just received my copy of the “Worker” book by Cory Piehowicz . It has a gorgeous dark indigo cover and features a high quality printing of photographs of miners and other laborers from the 1860s to 1920s along with beautiful examples of their vintage workwear. This amazing book is a “must read” for anyone interested in the early history of denim jeans! In the 1850s, laborers wore jeans that had a simple design with two front pockets and a baggy seat. From the 1860s through the 1920s, manufacturers added features in an incremental and stepwise way so that jeans increasingly resembled the pants of higher socioeconomic class. For example, they added a back pocket during the 1860s and a watch pocket by the early 1870s. This general progression in the design of workwear has been called the “democratization” of men’s dress. By the 1920s, jeans had accumulated more features than its modern form by adding belt loops while keeping buckle back cinches and suspender buttons. Photos 1 and 2 show an image of a miner on a 1878 cardboard label from a pair of Levi’s Grizzly brown duck jeans. (No, the miner is not Cory! lol) The Grizzly pants were the first non-riveted jeans manufactured by Levi’s after it introduced the famous 1873 riveted blue jeans. Photos 3 and 5 show a circa 1860 “closed front jumper” (heavy cotton shirt that buttoned part way down) and denim jeans once worn by a sharecropper in North Carolina. A meticulously stitched patchwork of 2-3 layers covers the jeans’s surface. I am forever grateful to Cory for my acquisition of the unique 1840 work pants in photo 4 from his impressive vintage collection. The pants is made of a pincheck indigo cloth. It is an important precursor to modern blue denim jeans. The pants is completely hand sewn. It was made before clothing manufacturers relied on sewing machines for the commercial mass production of ready-to-wear denim workwear that began during the late 1840s. The “Worker” book may be obtained at

Yesterday I enjoyed giving a virtual presentation in a class, “Denim: Past & Future” taught at Georgetown University by professor Emma McClendon. My topic was “Jeans and Gender: History and Design”. @emmamcclendon is a leading expert on fashion history and was the curator of a FIT museum exhibition in 2016 on denim’s place in fashion history.

I recommend highly the “War Denim” book that was published in Japan during the past year. It provides wonderful examples of World War 2 denim clothing as well as the US administrative rules that regulated clothing manufacturers. I learned much from its dating of Lee men’s S101 war jeans designs by year. It’s quite accurate, and I note only a minor disagreement with dating the Lee jeans with arcuates on the back pockets as being 1944. (Levi’s successfully won its lawsuit that prevented Lee from continuing to use arcuates in 1943.) This book’s information in dating Lee jeans is also helpful in assigning yearly dates to the Levi’s war jeans. In the first photo, I show a 1943 Levi’s S501XX jeans that has high contrast fades on dark indigo. Photos 2-3 show a rare 1942-43 Lee S131 Cowboy jeans that may be a woman’s pants. The book only describes the Lee men’s S101 model that is usually found. Photo 4 is a picture of the cardboard label of a 1943 Levi’s women’s Western Wear jeans that shows the “ceiling price” set by war price control regulations. The last photo shows a 1946 Lady Lee Cowboy jeans along with a 1948 Lady Lee Riders jeans.

1930s women’s jeans with double-side rows of donut buttons, curled belt loops, and large angular front pockets: The original owner of these jeans sewed the pleats to make it more form fitting as an addition to the factory-sewn darts underneath the back pockets. The pleats created dark denim shadows in the long folds. I recently acquired this pair from the outstanding collection of @thebrasslady . I have admired it since I began collecting several years ago. Thanks to @darnvintage for providing background information regarding this particular piece. It was originally found in Portland, Oregon. I could not have assembled my historical collection of women’s jeans without the expertise and kind encouragement of vintage dealers like these wonderful folks!