Читать книгу GOLD FEVER Part Three - Ken Salter - Страница 13

I was buoyed by the news that in January gold shipped through the San Francisco customs house totaled $46.6 million dollars. This figure didn’t include the considerable amount of gold successful miners took with them returning to their home countries. I had been intrigued by several French miners like Marie Suize, her brother and others who wanted to invest their gold in income-producing properties or businesses. As an entrepreneur, I needed both to raise capital for my new venture, “Dubois & Cie. Express” and search out potentially profitable new businesses or products. My business partnership with Bernard Lefebvre to manufacture and sell bear’s grease hair pomade and bear’s oil was profitable after only six months on the market. We supplied the bear’s grease obtained from French trappers who hunted bear and other animals and sold meat and fowl to French restaurants like ours. The bear’s grease was sold to card sharks, gamblers and dandies and the bear’s oil was sold as a patent medicine to cure all sorts of hair problems. By manufacturing our products locally, we avoided customs duties and luxury product taxes. We were able to price our pharmacy items fifty percent cheaper than imported bear’s grease and oils and still make a handsome profit split 50/50 between the Lefebvres and us.

In order to find similar products to manufacture, I had been running a classified ad in the French, Spanish and German language newspapers for several weeks. I claimed I was an entrepreneur with capital to invest in new products or inventions and could make sound, profitable investments for individuals desiring to invest in the local, booming economy. I asked interested parties to describe in writing their products, provide a sketch of the item and deliver it to the wholesale pharmacy near the Long Wharf where I maintained a small office and where my assistant, Gino, and the pharmacist’s sales clerk, Sophie Benson, sorted and organized for delivery letters from the French consulate.

I was on my way to my office when Gino intercepted me. He was out of breath and hoarsely shouting for me to hurry with him back to the office. There was someone there I should definitely see. I was astonished to see outside my office a smallish man peddling a dark colored cloth in a hand cart.

“This is the guy you want me to see?” I asked Gino perplexed. “He’s a peddler,” I said in disbelief.

Gino was still out of breath and shaking his head. He reached into the cart and pulled out a pair of sturdy looking men’s work pants and shoved them at me. “These will be a winner,” Gino croaked. “You gotta talk to this guy.” The little guy with the cart and wide blue eyes and rumpled clothes looked puzzled at Gino’s antics.

I took a hard look at the work pants. They looked to be made with a cloth we call serge de Nîmes — a heavy cloth made in the south of France and sometimes used for tents and canvas products. I had never seen the cloth made into clothes. Close inspection revealed good workmanship and pockets were reinforced with metal rivets. I asked the peddler if he spoke French or English.

“I speak a little English,” he replied sheepishly with a heavy Germanic accent. “I see your ad in our German paper. You have money for products. I need money to make more pants.” He reached into his cart and pulled out 2 more pairs of work pants in different sizes. “Miners want these pants, but I no can get denim material enough to make more,” he said in halting, frustrated English.

“Let’s go into my office and talk. Bring a couple of pairs of pants with you,” I said. Pointing to Gino, I said, “Stay here and watch the peddler’s cart while I speak with him in my office.”

As we walked into the pharmacy and headed for my cubbyhole in the back, Sophie Benson, the salesclerk and my part-time letter sorter, gave me a whimsical look. She’d been taking in the scene on the street and gave me a look as if to say, “look what the cat has brought in from the hunt.”

I motioned my client to take a seat and hand me the pair of work pants he was clutching as if his life depended on them. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Pierre Dubois. I put the ad in your German paper. What’s your name,” I asked extending my hand.

“I’m called Levi Strauss,” he replied giving my hand a firm shake.

“Tell me about your pants and why you need assistance to make more.”

“Well, I come to San Francisco with my cloth, needles and thread. I think to make tents for miners cuz’ we read in New York winters here very bad for miners. But miners no need tents, so I try to sell to ladies, but they no want my cloth either; they want only fancy clothes made with silk, velvet and taffeta. So, I get desperate. Nobody told me life so expensive here. I buy a cart for $50 and wheel it from place to place and offer to make clothes, any clothes. I meet miners; they say we need sturdy pants. I say I can make you strong pants. They say ‘how much?’ I say $6. One miner give me $6 and I measure him with my string. I go to tailor’s shop and give him the $6. I say to tailor cut all my cloth to make pants — some big, some small. I sew the pants and sell to miners in front of stores where they buy supplies. I sell my pants but have no more cloth. I write my 2 brothers in New York to send me more cloth, but it takes too long. So, I need help to buy cloth. I have customers, but few pants to sell. More cloth and I sell lots more cuz’ miners like my pants. Even carpenters want to buy. They say make pockets stronger, so I use rivets; they like.” Strauss paused and sighed. He looked at me with pleading big eyes.

“Why do miners prefer your work pants to what they normally wear?”

“They say they are stronger an’ tougher than cotton or canvas pants. They say regular work pants, even boots, come apart with heavy work at the rivers. They specially like I reinforce pockets and seams with rivets to make my pants. I want to use copper rivets instead of tin ones, but I have no funds for them.”

While Strauss spoke, I examined his work pants carefully. I had to agree that the heavy denim material was stronger and more durable than the cotton, wool and canvas pants I’d seen miners wearing while working river placers. “You said carpenters liked your pants too. What reason did they give?”

“They have me sew extra pockets and straps to hang their tools. They say pants will last longer and not wear out so fast when they have to work on their knees,” Strauss replied eagerly.

I was starting to get the bigger picture. These solidly riveted work pants would appeal to all sorts of workmen in addition to miners — carpenters, artisans, cowboys, etc. If made on a large enough scale and properly marketed, it could be a profitable product especially if it caught on with the thousands of miners who wore out their clothes at least twice a year. “I like your product Mr. Strauss. I have backers who would invest in your work pants to market them to miners and other workers. The normal way we operate is to establish a partnership involving key individuals to make the product as well as promoters to market it and investors providing the capital. In addition to cloth and sewing materials, we’d need a workshop to make the pants and a retail store to sell the pants. Peddling them on a cart is not an efficient way to sell your pants. I see your role as working with the retail shop, maybe to measure clients and promote the durability of the pants as their inventor. I would be the general partner coordinating the manufacturing and marketing of your work pants. We could call them ‘Levis.’ What do you think?”

“You can do all this?” He replied bewildered. I learned later that he and his two brothers, Jacob and Willy, had struggled to make a living first in Bavaria and later in rural New York as peddlers going house to house selling needles, thread, yarn, ribbons, brass buttons and pots and pans to village wives and farm girls.

“Yes and if the product really catches on, we’ll sell the pants in the towns near the mining camps where miners buy their provisions. There are many more miners in the placers than in San Francisco. With my postal concession for French and Chilean miners, we could sell to these miners as well as your fellow countrymen. If you are in agreement, I’ll have my attorney draw the necessary papers ready to sign tomorrow afternoon. You’d have twenty-five percent of the profits and the partnership would have the exclusive right to market your work pants. Is this agreeable?” Ball in his court.

Levi Strauss shook his curly head in disbelief that an hour ago he was pushing his cart and tomorrow he’d be a partner in an enterprise manufacturing and marketing his work pants. As Strauss seemed to be on cloud nine, I offered him my hand to shake in agreement. He grabbed it eagerly and shook it vigorously. “Yes, yes, it’s a dream come true. I was getting desperate.”

“Good. Let’s meet here at 4 P.M. tomorrow to sign the papers. I’m going to take these two pair of pants to show to my associates. I’ll give them back to you tomorrow.”

After Strauss left, Gino came rushing in. “What happened? Tell me. Are we going to work with him?”

“Whoa. Hold your horses. I’ve got it wrapped up. We sign an exclusive marketing agreement here tomorrow at 4 o’clock. I’ll explain it to you on our way to Attorney Hawthorne’s office. I need him to draft partnership papers. I’d already told Gino my plans for him to open an assay and express office in Sonora which he’d jumped at. “And if all goes well with the signing tomorrow, you could have the exclusive right to sell Strauss’ work pants to miners provisioning in Sonora.”

Gino was whistling a happy tune when we arrived at Hawthorne’s spartan office. I instructed Hawthorne to drop everything he was working on and get to work on the partnership agreement I laid out to him. I offered him ten percent of the partnership profit if he would agree to handle the partnership’s legal work. He’d need to figure a way to patent the work pants. After carefully examining the workmanship, Hawthorne said, “We can trademark his name and maybe the riveting, but we’re sure to have competitors with knock-offs if these pants catch on as I think they will. They’re stronger and more durable than anything on the market that I’ve seen.”

“Then time is of essence as you lawyers claim. We have to get into production before competitors get wind of our scheme. Gino, find Strauss and check him into a nice out-of-the-way boarding house with good food and help him sell his cart. We don’t want him blabbing about his new venture all over town. Then use the telegraph to corner the market for all available denim cloth available with suppliers in Sacramento and Stockton. Buy up everything available in town. Get on it pronto,” I said hurrying out the door on my way to Teri Rios who was still running our wine bar on the wharf. As it was late in the afternoon, I helped her and Giselle close for the day.

Once we had all the gear stowed, I invited Teri to have a glass of wine with me in the forecastle of our ship, which now had wine bins, tables and a small bar for wine tasting, another one of many planned ventures. I laid out for Teri my agreement with Levi Strauss and let her examine the two pairs of denim work pants I removed from a satchel.

“They’re good quality. Where do I fit in?” Teri queried.

“I thought once we get into production, you could sell them in your bodega. We’d provide them to you ready to sell. You add your markup to our wholesale price and sell them for us. He’s been able to sell them for $6 a pair and I think we can make them cheaply once we get the cloth. It should bring you a lot of new business. And since your bodega is currently vacant until we can find the right couple to run our concessions here, I would like to rent your store. We would use it to manufacture a supply of work pants until we can find a suitable workshop.”

“Where will you get tailors to cut the garments and seamstresses to sew them?” Teri asked.

“Consul Dillon will find them for me. He’s got all those “Ingots” to house and feed until he can find them jobs; there’s bound to be skilled cutters and sewers among them. He maintains a list of skills for all the poor souls he has to find places for. He’ll be thrilled if I can supply work for some of his charges.”

“You can count on me. I’m glad to have my store occupied until I can open it for business. I’m always afraid another group of squatters will break in and trash the premises. You don’t have to pay me rent given all you’ve done for me. I’m happy to help and I know I can make money selling these work pants. They’re hardy and durable. I can see why miners and artisans would prefer them to the flimsy cotton and canvas ones most suppliers offer.”

I was pumped up and excited walking home in a dense fog. Our winter and start of spring was strange so far. We’d had less rain than the year before, but more blustery wind and bone-chilling fog that had already claimed two ships off the fog-shrouded coast near Bolinas. The mail steamship “Tennessee” wrecked on the rocks by Bolinas Bay in March with 600 passengers aboard. Fortunately, the ship was close enough to the sandy beach of the bay that all passengers including many women and children were saved along with most of the cargo. The steamship “S.S. Lewis” met a similar fate at the beginning of April when it beached in heavy fog north of Bolinas Bay and all 585 passengers were saved.

Manon had opened our restaurant for lunch and we wouldn’t do a dinner service until the weekend two days hence. That would give me a short window of time to get all the elements in place to start production on Strauss’ denim work pants. I bounded up the stairs to our apartment over our restaurant two at a time. Manon was bouncing Fanny on her knee and cooing in Jules’ direction while Jules howled his displeasure from his crib. He was about to let go with another round when he spied me and changed his tactic. “Papa, papa,” Jules now hollered as he rattled the slats of his crib with force. Manon looked amused and pointed to the crib. Domestic duty before business at our house was the order of the evening. Monique Boudin took care of our twins along with her son the same age as our twins while Manon ran the lunch service downstairs. Our toddlers knew the routine and how to vie and get our attention. Sometimes they even worked in tandem to ensure we pampered them the way they wanted. I picked up Jules and all of a sudden there was peace and quiet as Jules gurgled his pleasure as I tickled his tummy and tossed him up in the air while his sister egged me on.

It wasn’t until after dinner and the kids were in bed that I could share my exciting news with Manon. I recapped my meeting with Levi Strauss and showed Manon the two pairs of work pants. “What do you think?” I asked.

Manon examined the pants carefully. “You say Strauss tried to peddle his cloth to women, yes? Manon has an idea. Of course, the ladies of the night and all the pouffiasses in the dance halls and gambling dens won’t want to wear sturdy work dresses. They wear latest fashions to entice men to their beds and work with clothes off, yes?” I laughed at her characterization of French “working girls.” It was true many worked afternoons and evenings until midnight in the gambling palaces in sexy attire and were paid $16 a day, the equivalent of an ounce of gold, to serve drinks, weigh gold dust, sing, dance or play an instrument, or just sit at a gambling table to be admired. Once their “shift” was over, many did offer themselves for sexual services for a handsome fee. Some even posted their hours and rates on the door to their house or apartment.

“What’s your idea?” I asked. “Surely, you don’t think working girls—chambermaids, waitresses, laundresses and the like would want to wear dresses in this heavy material, do you?”

Manon unpinned her mop of dark curly hair that fell half way down her back and shook her ringlets enticingly to say no. “Denim skirts with petticoats would never sell even to shop girls, but denim aprons for working girls would.”

“Aprons? What do you mean?” I didn’t see where she was going with this.

“Yes, Big Boy, aprons—long tabliers—that honest working girls can wear over their skirts to signal they are not available for sexual favors.”

I laughed. “You mean like the women in Paris and London, Les bas-bleus, who wear blue stockings to announce they are educated, literary women? And now you want lowly working girls to wear blue smocks as a protest?”

“Exactly, every single woman and most married ones cannot walk the streets of San Francisco without getting propositioned for sex. You heard Marie Pantalon and many others tell of being accosted by horny miners, rowdies and worse. All the women we work with have had the same experience. Even I got offers of a house and monthly income when you visited the northern mines if I would be a mistress or marry a wealthy merchant or banker. I agree we will make money marketing these work pants to miners and artisans as they are better than anything currently for sale, but I think long work aprons would also be practical and catch on if advertised to women as a badge of honor that the wearer is not part of the sex trade but an honest working girl.”

I didn’t think wearing such an apron would discourage drunk and sex-hungry males from propositioning working girls wearing aprons given that the ratio of men to women in the city was still close to 50 to 1. Manon’s idea might just catch on and give us an additional marketing tool. A denim work apron might also appeal to bakers, butchers and other artisans as well. Most work aprons I’d seen were made of cotton and soiled easily. “I agree. Your idea has merit and we have nothing to lose to make a selection of aprons along with work pants. I think some men may also like the idea of a sturdy covering for their work clothes. Maybe even blue-apron guys will be appealing to your blue-apron girls, no?” I mimicked Manon’s accent tongue-in-cheek.

“Hah, Big Boy mocks his wife, yes? You’ll see I’m right.” Manon tossed her luxurious mane of curls, crooked her finger and pointed to our bedroom. We’d have to get on with our lovemaking and pillow talk if we didn’t want to be rudely interrupted by a duo of ear-piercing screams from the nursery.

The next two days were filled with frenzied activity once Strauss signed the partnership and exclusive marketing agreements. Gino had purchased all the available denim material for sale in San Francisco and we had prospects of more from Sacramento and Stockton. I detailed Gino to have Levi Strauss help with setting up Teri’s shop with cutting and sewing tables. Consul Dillon quickly rounded up a team of experienced cloth cutters, former tailors, and seamstresses. He was so happy with the enterprise that he donated money to buy the tools and materials his workers needed to cut and assemble the work pants. Manon provided two work aprons used by our cook staff as models.

We decided we’d market two types of work pants. Our cutters and seamstresses were busy making standard size ready-to-wear pants to be sold off the display rack for $7.50 a pair and also customized work pants that Levi Strauss would measure to assure a perfect fit. These custom pants would sell for $10 a pair and have copper rivets and a leather label sewn into the rear of the belt area that attested they were “Genuine Levis.” The ready-to-wear ones would have common metal rivets; Hawthorne felt he could patent a product with copper rivets. Once we had competitors, we’d make all our work pants with copper rivets to distance ourselves from competitors and market a nicer appearing product. Consul Dillon agreed to finance a copper rivet making enterprise which assured more work for his minions and would repay his capital outlay in time.

As we wanted to market the work pants as soon as possible, we commissioned Jacques Boucher, brother of our chef, Rose Boucher, to remodel the interior of Teri Rios’ bodega so she could open as soon as we found replacements for Teri and Giselle on our wharf concessions. Jacques built a small bar like the one on our ship and rigged a small enclosure with heavy curtains where one could try on a pair of work pants for fit.

I invited Justinian Caire to lunch at Chez Manon telling him I had an interesting business proposition for him. Manon had modified our lunch menu and now offered a “business man’s special” suggested by Consul Dillon and others. San Francisco was not like Paris where most business and marketing meetings took place over a five course meal that ended in late afternoon with cigars and tumblers of cognac. Most San Francisco merchants ran their stores with a minimum of hired help and preferred to slip out to gobble a quick but tasty snack or quaff a longer lunch if possible.

With the new lunch dynamics in mind, Manon developed the business man’s special—a hearty soup or salade Niçoise to start, then a choice of a slice of quiche, a cold cut platter, small steak with shallots or blue cheese sauce, or a shellfish platter and a half liter carafe of white or red wine for $3.75. The smaller a la carte menu offered an omelette aux champignons, or crèpes farcis, or pâté en croute with a big slice of tarte maison each for $2.50. The cold cut platter, the pâté in a pastry shell, quiche, and tart were prepared in advance and along with the soup served in our canteen on the Long Wharf. Only the omelets, fish, crepes and shellfish had to be cooked in our restaurant’s kitchen.

I had met Caire before. He arrived in San Francisco in March, 1851 and immediately established a hardware and mining supply store which was completely destroyed in the fire of May 3, 1851. Having been wiped out by fire once, he took the unusual precaution to dig a deep basement cellar which he covered in metal when reconstructing his store at 178 Washington Street. Other merchants laughed at his endeavor and commented he was a bit fou or off his rocker to build his underground storage depot when he sold no wine. He was recompensed six weeks later when he was able to save all his store’s inventory in the fire of June 23rd. He had recently expanded his operation and taken Claude Long as a partner.

Caire, like the French newspaper editor, Etienne Derbec, arrived dressed in his no-nonsense work clothes—baggy corduroy pants, work boots, sleeveless sweater over open-collared cotton shirt with sleeves rolled up and a ragged work smock still tied around his neck. He was of average height, with dark features, a strong chin, and azure blue eyes that twinkled as he pushed his unruly, coarse, black hair off his face and stuck out his hand in greeting.

Georges brought carafes of red and white wine and I apprised him that I had a new product miners were clamoring for which would sell like hotcakes in his hardware store where he stocked a full range of mining tools and equipment including cotton and canvas work pants. After we’d drained our first glasses of wine and refilled them, I pulled a pair of Strauss’ denim work pants out of my satchel and handed them over to Caire, who examined them carefully before handing them back.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“They’re certainly well made with the stitching reinforced with rivets. I’ll wager they’ll be more durable than anything else on the market. We‘d probably sell fewer regular work trousers if these were available at a reasonable price,” he said emphasizing “reasonable.”

“Well, you sell ordinary work pants for $5 to $6 a pair. Our superior denim pants retail for $7.50 and the wholesale price to you would be $6.00 a pair.” I knew he worked on a much better profit margin on his inventory including the work pants he sold, but he was a smart enough businessman to know once the superior product was readily available, few, if any, would want canvas or cotton work pants when the denim one was only a couple of dollars more.

Caire sucked in his breath before replying. “How much time will you give before we have to pay you?” He asked quickly.

“Only 15 days I’m afraid. We’ve expended a lot of money getting into production and we anticipate a tremendous demand not only here but in Sacramento, Stockton and the towns near the placers that provision miners in the field. Thus, we can’t give extended credit,” I stated calmly. He was chewing his upper lip; I was sure he’d seen Levi Strauss peddling his work pants in front of his store and was kicking himself that he hadn’t befriended him as we had.

“How many other suppliers in the city will be carrying the denim pants?” he asked grumpily as Manon served our steak-frites rare and smothered in a shallot sauce. I let him get the taste of the meat and delicious sauce before replying.

“If we arrive at terms, there will be only one other store selling the pants and they will be featuring a more upscale and expensive version, so really for these pants,” I said pointing to the pair he had examined, “there will little competition here in the city. Our aim is to market to miners working in the field who will recognize immediately how superior they are to what they are wearing.”

Caire’s square jaw seemed to relax with my assurance that he’d have little direct competition from other outfitters and suppliers. I went on to describe my need for an assayer and supplies for an assay office and small foundry to assay gold and silver samples and make a variety of gold ingots. Caire was so eager to get the work pants concession that he promised to supply my assay office needs at wholesale rates. Manon served us large slices of apple tart and said sweetly, “You must insist your employees wear both a pair of denim work pants and denim smock when serving clients.” And she pointed to Caire’s shabby, worn cotton smock he’d removed before sitting at our table.

“PORTSMOUTH SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO”

— litho c. 1853 (author’s collection).

“WELLS FARGO & CO. EXPRESS BUILDING — NE CORNER OF MONTGOMERY & CALIFORNIA STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO”

— litho c. 1853 (author’s collection).