Levi strauss biography anthropology clothing

French anthropologist and ethnologist (1908–2009)

"Lévi-Strauss" redirects here. For the clothing manufacturer, see Levi Strauss. For other uses, see Levi Strauss (disambiguation).

Claude Lévi-Strauss (klawd LAY-vee STROWSS;French:[klodlevistʁos]; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982, was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973 and was a member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world.

Lévi-Strauss argued that the "savage" mind had the same structures as the "civilized" mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere. These observations culminated in his famous book Tristes Tropiques (1955) which established his position as one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought. As well as sociology, his ideas reached into many fields in the humanities, including philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity." He won the 1986 International Nonino Prize in Italy.

Biography

Early life and education

Gustave Claude Lévi-Strauss was born in 1908 to French-Jewish (turned agnostic) parents who were living in Brussels, where his father was working as a portrait painter at the time. He grew up in Paris, living on a street of the upscale 16th arrondissement named after the artist Claude Lorrain, whose work he admired and later wrote about. During the First World War, from age 6 to 10, he lived with his maternal grandfat

It would be impossible for a person called Levi to ignore his own position relative to Blue Jeans in an ethnography opening with a discussion of Levi Strauss patenting rivets on pants and the structuralism of Claude Levi-Strauss.  I have always personally had a love-hate relationship with jeans, thinking them (as some of subjects of the book remarked) too hot in summer, especially difficult to walk in while wet, and not particularly comfortable overall. Perhaps I never took the time to properly wear in my jeans, allowing the threads to stretch for maximum comfort, and I have always been much more likely to re-wear a pair rather than looking to put on to those pants that were just laundered. I have also avoided Levi’s Jeans, shopping at a wide-range of stores for brands like Wrangler or Bugle Boy instead, in what seems a kind of negative brand loyalty.

            Though Daniel Miller and Sophie Woodward, who bring together backgrounds in anthropology and costume studies, clearly see the most interesting aspect of their book Blue Jeans: The Art of the Ordinary to be their theorization of the role played by ‘performing ordinariness’ (to borrow from Bourdieu as the authors often do) in enabling first and second generation immigrants from around the Commonwealth to feel comfortable living in London society. Yet they admit that other case studies that have been contributed to their larger and ongoing “Global Denim Project” suggest their findings might apply best to cities like London (and perhaps San Francisco, homeland of Levis) that are home an evolving multi-cultural population.  I was actually most intrigued by their discussion of the American-ness of blue jeans (embodied by the indigo dyes that long kept South Carolina rich as a plantation economy, the history of modern denim jeans as male working class dress in the 19Century American West, and the first experience that many Englishmen had with jeans being during WWII) and the sometimes perilous gender po

German-American businessman (1829–1902)

This article is about the American clothing manufacturer. For the French anthropologist, see Claude Lévi-Strauss. For other uses, see Levi Strauss (disambiguation).

Levi Strauss (LEE-vy STROWSS; born Löb Strauß, German:[løːpˈʃtʁaʊs]; February 26, 1829 – September 26, 1902) was a German-born American businessman who founded the first company to manufacture blue jeans. His firm of Levi Strauss & Co. (Levi's) began in 1853 in San Francisco, California.

Early life

Levi Strauss was born to a Jewish family in Buttenheim on February 26, 1829, in the Franconia region of the Kingdom of Bavaria in the German Confederation. He was the son of Hirsch Strauss and Hirsch’s second wife, Rebecca Strauss (née Haas).

In 1847, aged 18, Strauss travelled with his mother and two sisters to the United States to join his brothers Jonas and Louis, who had begun a wholesale dry goods business in New York City called J. Strauss Brother & Co., at 108 Liberty Street in Manhattan. After arriving in New York, Strauss worked as an itinerant peddler of goods from his brother's store: kettles, blankets and sewing goods.

Business career

Levi's sister Fanny and her husband David Stern moved to St. Louis, Missouri, while Levi went to live in Louisville, Kentucky, and sold his brothers' supplies there. Levi became an American citizen in January 1853.

The family decided to open a West Coast branch of their dry goods business in San Francisco, which was the commercial hub of the California gold rush. Levi was chosen to represent them, and he took steamships for San Francisco via Panama, where he arrived in early March 1854 and joined his sister's family.

Strauss opened his wholesale business as Levi St