Levi Strauss: A History of American Style

Your health and safety are of the utmost importance to all of us here at The Contemporary Jewish Museum (The CJM). During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are offering a virtual version of Levi Strauss: A History of American Style that you can explore from home if you are unable to visit The Museum in person.

The following is a curated reading list that covers themes of the Levi Strauss exhibition and gold rush-era California, with topics ranging from Jewish life in nineteenth- and twentieth-century San Francisco to the history of the Ohlone Tribe. Purchase these titles from Bay Area bookstores in the links below, or check your local bookstore or library for a copy.

• Barbara Berglund, Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West 1846–1906  (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007)
• Wayne Bonnett, San Francisco: Gateway to the Pacific  (Sausalito, CA: Windgate Press, 2010)
• Wayne Bonnett, Victorian San Francisco: The 1895 Illustrated Directory (Sausalito, CA: Windgate Press, 1996)
• Michael R. Corbett, Port City: The History and Transformation of the Port of San Francisco, 1848–2010 (San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Architectural Heritage, 2011)
• Robert Courland, The Old North Waterfront: The History and Rebirth of a San Francisco Neighborhood  (San Francisco, CA: The Ron Kaufman Companies, 2004)
• Frances Dinkelspiel, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010)
• Marc Dollinger, Ava F. Kahn, and Moses Rischin, California Jews (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011)
• Lynn Downey, Images of America: Levi Strauss & Co.  (San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2007)
• Lynn Downey, Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016)
• Lynn Downey, Jill Novack Lynch, and Kathleen McDonough, This is a Pair of Levi’s Jeans: The Official History of the Levi’s Brand (San Francisco, CA: Levi Strauss & Co., 1995)
• Ellen Eisenberg, Ava F. Kahn, and William Toll, Jews of the Pacific Coast: Reinventing Community on America’s Edge (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2009)
• Frederick Isaac, Images of America: Jews of Oakland and Berkeley (San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2009)
• Ava F. Kahn, Jewish Life in the American West (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2004)
• Manu Karuka, Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019)
• David S. Koffman, The Jew's Indian: Colonialism, Pluralism, and Belonging in America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019)
• William M. Kramer, A Lone Traveler: Einstein in California (Los Angeles, CA: Skirball Cultural Center, 2004)
• Tanya Lloyd Kyi, The Blue Jean Book: The Story Behind the Seams (Buffalo, NY: Annick Press, 2005)
• Harriet Lane Levy, 920 O’Farrell Street: A Jewish Girlhood in Old San Francisco (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010)
• Beth Lew-Williams, The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of an Alien in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)
• Malcolm Margolin, The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area (Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1978)
• Susan Morris, A Traveler's Guide to Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries of the California Gold Rush (Berkeley, CA: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 1996)
• The Jews of the West: The Metropolitan Years, ed. Moses Rischin (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1991)
• Hollywood's West: The American Frontier in Film, Television, & History, ed. John O’Conner and Peter C. Rollins (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2005)
• Fred RosenBaum, Cosmopolitans: A Social & Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2009)
• Fred Rosenbaum, Visions of Reform: Congregation Emanu-El and the Jews of San Francisco 1849–1999 (Berkeley, CA: The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, 2000)
• Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity, ed. Edward J. Safra (New York, NY: George Braziller Publishers, 2000)
• Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2003)
• David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love (New York, NY: Free Press, 2012)
• Edward Zerin, Images of America: Jewish San Francisco (San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing, 2006)

Support for Levi Strauss: A History of American Style is generously provided by Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; Gaia Fund; John Pritzker Family Fund; Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund; Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund; Mimi and Peter Haas Fund; The David Berg Foundation; John & Marcia Goldman Foundation; Suzanne and Elliott Felson; Colleen and Robert D. Haas; Dana Corvin and Harris Weinberg, in honor of Paulette Meyer and David Friedman, and Catherine and James Koshland; Kendra and Tom Kasten, in honor of Robert D. Haas; Michael Righi; Dorothy R. Saxe; David Saxe; Marilyn and Murry Waldman; and Rosanne and Al Levitt.

Lead Corporate Sponsorship is provided by Levi’s^®.

Media Sponsorship is provided by the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED. In-kind support is provided by Corduroy Media.