History of Levi's in US Correctional Facilities

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'In 1885, LS&Co. was awarded a contract to supply clothing to San Quentin Prison, 16 miles north of San Francisco. In 1890, the company was awarded the contract for striped flannel to Folsom Prison near Sacramento, California. In the succeeding decade, LS&Co. provided San Quentin with hickory shirting, coat canvas, and flannel. By 1898, LS&Co. had secured a contract to supply Folsom prison with “cassimere, striped, for convict suits, 58 inches, 82 ½ c.”.'

Throughout the late 1800s, denim began to make its way into the American correctional system as a material for uniforms. It is very durable which is suited to uniform usage; the longer the wear, the lower the cost of repeated replacement. Uniforms were also 'Blue and white striped shirts produced in prison workshops in the 1970s and 1980s were bulky and made of rough heavyweight, raised weave twill cotton. They reveal no wastage of fabric through their lack of shape and squared cuffs'. This is a reference to the British correctional system for cotton based products, but the mentality of thriftiness carries through. The same would apply in the US to denim which was a choice material for uniform at the time. In the early 1900s, denim became the standard for correctional uniforms. Supplies such as Levi Strauss had developed strong relationship with supply for the prisons. Levi's jeans popularity in a criminal context began to seep into society's view of the material. In the 1953 film 'The Wild One', Marlon

Brando dons leather and Levi's jeans as a biker gang leader. Levi's and their links to criminal behaviour began to be banned in schools. Through the 1960s, Levi's campaigns featured preppy school children wearing their jeans in order to recolour the tainted picture of the brand's denim.

Thrift stores of the 1990s began to be filled with ex-prison jeans. 'Wholesalers gather vast quantities of used clothes from all over North America and Canada, particularly from institutions. Hospitals are one source, penitentiaries another: most ot the second-hand Levis that found their way to Britain were prisoners' cast-offs. Issued as a uniform, the denims are worn for the length of the inmate's sentence (those circular marks on the back pockets are made by the prison-issue tobacco tin) then discarded.' I used to sell vintage Levi's, I'd handle about 100kg a month and there would be pairs with all sorts of odd wear on them, especially the wear on the back pockets (usually the right hand pocket) which was rectangular and I always assumed was a wallet. It would make sense for prisoners not to have wallets (obviously), but instead to keep close to them their piece of personal property, the tobacco tin. There was a barcode and a name ironed on to the inside of one pair. Cooke, Don. I assumed this pair had been a part of the correctional system uniform, although I cannot prove it. However, Donald Cooke is in a Canadian jail serving a life sentence for beating a nurse to death - perhaps a contrived link. The connectivity of denim is fascinating in prisons. Maybe this example is more to do with the barcode than the denim, but regardless the barcode has been applied to the denim. The denim is a canvas. The durability of denim means that whilst it lives a life on an inmate in prison, it is collecting all sorts of marks and memories in a way that other materials cannot. Wearing denim acts like wearing a passport. This is true of old 100% cotton far more than modern elastane blends - the weight and blend of cotton around the 1880s-1980s when its usage in prison peaked would have been very high quality. Around that century, the majority of the denim would have been produce in the USA, a rarity now.

References: https://www.levistrauss.com/2016/05/05/the-prison-pants-a-history-of-levis-behind-bars/ https://www.cabbagetownpeople.ca/person/rowena-hume/ https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-shirts-are-a-steal-and-the-levis-have-done-hard-time-1330815.html https://socialengagementffm.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/the-prison-uniform.pdf

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