It was founded in May 1853[2] when German-Jewish immigrant Levi Strauss moved from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California, to open a West Coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business.

[7] Jacob Davis, a Latvian-Jewish[8] immigrant, was a Reno, Nevada,[9] tailor who frequently purchased bolts of denim cloth from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house.

In 1890, the rivet patent went into the public domain; the same year, lot numbers were assigned to company products, and "501" was used to designate the famous copper-riveted waist overalls.

[14] Modern jeans began to appear in the 1920s, but sales were largely confined to the working people of the western US, such as cowboys, lumberjacks, and railroad workers.

Levi's jeans were first introduced to the East during the dude ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned home with tales (and usually examples) of the hard-wearing riveted denim pants.

Another boost came in World War II when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and sold only to people engaged in defense work.

[16] Additionally, the back pocket rivets, which had been covered in denim since 1937 to prevent scratching furniture, were removed in the 1950s (and replaced by bar tacks) as they eventually wore through and caused the problem anyway.

[18] The Dockers brand, launched in 1986 and sold primarily through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to wane.

By the 1990s, Levi's faced competition from other brands and cheaper products from overseas and began accelerating the pace of its US factory closures and its use of offshore subcontractors.

Cited for sub-minimum wages, seven-day work weeks with 12-hour shifts, poor living conditions, and other workplace abuses, Tan Holdings Corporation, Levi Strauss' Marianas subcontractor, paid what were then the largest fines in US labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1,200 employees.

[20][21][22] Levi Strauss claimed no knowledge of the offenses, severed ties to the Tan family, and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.

The activist group Fuerza Unida (United Force) formed following the January 1990 closure of a plant in San Antonio, Texas, in which 1,150 seamstresses – some of whom had worked for Levi Strauss for decades – saw their jobs exported to Costa Rica.

[23] During the mid-and late 1990s, Fuerza Unida picketed the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco and staged hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of the company's labor policies.

In June 1996, the company offered to pay its workers an unusual dividend of up to $750 million in six years, having halted an employee-stock plan during the internal family buyout.

[38] Levi's has successfully sued Guess, Polo Ralph Lauren, Esprit Holdings, Zegna, Zumiez, and Lucky Brand Jeans, among other companies.

[47] In 2019, Levi's became one of only two major clothing companies with commitments in line with the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

[55] Levi's Autumn/Winter 2023 WellThread capsule aimed to show the brand's engagement to sustainability as it included items made from 100% transitional cotton as well as plant-based natural dyes.

[61] The vintage Levi's bore a label with the inscription "the only kind made by white labor", a detail which helped date the jeans to the period between 1882, which was after the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese laborers seeking to immigrate to the U.S., and the 1890s, when the company "reversed [its] policy and company leaders began speaking out against the nation's racist policy".

[68] However, the company is alleged to make use of Uyghur forced labor provided by the China-based supplier Beijing Guanghua Textile Group from a report by the Helena Kennedy Center for International Justice, the socialists and democrats in the European Parliament.

[71] As of 2019, Levi's are made in many developing countries, including Bangladesh, India, Egypt, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico.

[72] In addition to jeans, Levi's sells a full line of shirts, jackets, sweaters, underwear, socks, eyeglasses, accessories, dresses, skirts, and leather products.

All jeans and pants are categorized by fit – skinny, slim, straight, bootcut, taper, relaxed, flare, and "big & tall" – identified by trademarked three-digit numbers.