Three monumental Jewish pioneers

Jews have played a major part in inventing, creating, and running companies. Here are three early industry game-changers.

Levi Strauss: Jeans from Jewish Genes

Bavarian immigrant to the U.S. Levi Loeb Strauss (1829-1902), in partnership with Latvian-born inventor, Jacob W. Davis (1831–1908), and Levi's brother in-law, David Stern (1820-1875), also from Bavaria founded Levi Strauss & Co following the "creation" of the ubiquitous jeans by Strauss and Davis.

Levi Strauss arrived on American soil in 1847, became a peddler and was lured West by the Gold Rush, sailing to San Francisco in 1853 with canvas for tents and wagons. The Cherokees called him "the egg eater" as kosher peddlers subsisted on eggs and veggies. But he found a better use for his canvas - overalls for miners. Later, he switched to denim.

After Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, reinforced these work pants with metal rivets, blue jeans ("riveted-waist overalls") were born.

On May 20, 1873, Davis and Levi Strauss and Co. received Patent No.139,121 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings." Levi Strauss and Co. was incorporated with the State of California (San Francisco) in 1890.

Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first manufacturing facility for "waist overalls." At first, they employed seamstresses working out of their homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. Brother-in-law, David Stern managed the fast-growing fabric firm for a number of years, while Levi Strauss was sales manager and promoter.

The famous 501-brand jean-known until 1890 as "XX"-was soon a bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi's were the top-selling men's work pants in the United States. During WW II, Levi's were limited to people in defense work. In 1935, jeans were featured in Vogue. By the 70s they were virtually underground "currency" in Communist countries.

Strauss, a well-known supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco, having no children, left the business to his four nephews. Nearly a century and a half later, Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the biggest brand names in apparel, available in 50,000 locations in 110 countries. It's still privately held and mostly owned by Strauss descendants.

Abraham Schreiner

Did you know that gas (petroleum) wasn't discovered by an Arab or a Texan? The credit properly goes to Austrian Jew, Abraham Schreiner, an amateur scientist who found one could use petroleum to light the world. In 1853, he built a distillation plant, before Americans "discovered" it.

In fairness, there are several differing accounts of his contribution. Here is the most credible. In Borislav (Ukraine, formerly part of Galicia) the first attempts to find petroleum were made by Schreiner before the middle of the 19th century. Abraham Schreiner attempted to separate the petroleum from the earth admixture. After many failures, he succeeded in establishing the first petroleum refinery in Borislav in 1854.

Many railway companies then ordered petroleum from him for lighting their carriages and stations. He became the world's first "petroleum king" until the destruction of his refinery in several fires.

In March 1884, Hugo Warmholz (1842-1909), a journalist from Vienna, travelled to Lemberg, the capital of Galicia to fulfill his long-held curiosity to see oil and wax gush out of the earth and get to the bottom of the origin of petroleum. He even met the man, Schreiner, himself. Warmholz wrote that "A Jew from Boryslav, in his early seventies, arrived in tattered, but clean Sabbath clothes. With tears in his eyes the old man showed me the official documents which affirmed that in 1853 he was the first to distill, produce and sell petroleum for illumination."

Upon further investigation, after acknowledging that Schreiner's product was murky and had a penetrating smell, Warmholz concluded that it was Herr Nikolasch, the owner of a pharmacy in Lemberg (Lwów) to whom Schreiner sold his distillate, who refined crude oil into naphtha. However, Warmholz presented Schreiner's story as one of human interest to elicit the sympathy of middle European readers. In 1883 challenging the contemporary negative view of Jews was daring. Hugo Warmholz's article brought a new sensibility, forged in Vienna's liberal and intellectual circles, to Galician life and Galician Jews.

As for Schreiner, he lived in obscurity, unrecognized for his accomplishments, and while others grew rich on his discovery, Wormholz said, [he lived in a fashion] "that was 'nothing more than a beggar.'"

Jacob Blaustein and Amoco

Jacob Blaustein founded Amoco, building a global oil empire. He was also a U.S. diplomat and a generous philanthropist.

The year was 1910 when 18-year-old Jacob and his father, Louis, formed the American Oil Co. (today part of the petroleum giant BP Amoco). The company with the impressive name started out selling kerosene in Baltimore from a horse-drawn tank wagon.

Louis provided inspiration as well as perspiration; the Lithuanian-born immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1888 sold petroleum products to Standard Oil in New Jersey (think John D. Rockefeller) for 18 years. But son Jacob fueled the company to amazing heights with his genius, ingenuity, and education (chemistry), creating superior refining methods and cleaner-burning kerosene. Sales skyrocketed.

Jacob also created the drive-through filling station and the metered pump, both breakthroughs in the industry. Amoco's first drive-through (the Lord Baltimore Filling Station) alleviated the messy job of motorists filling up at street curbs. The Blausteins' pumps were topped with a 10-gallon glass jar and gallon markings on the side. Amoco's slogan: "See what you get, and get what you see." created a much-needed metering system.

By 1954, Jacob's Amoco became super-sized as a subsidiary of Standard Oil of Indiana. The Blausteins diversified with the American Trading and Production Co. and were involved with manufacturing, banking, real estate, insurance, and ocean tankers. They also had a controlling share of Crown Central Petroleum.

Jacob Blaustein proved a national and international diplomat, advising five presidents, and traveling to many nations, including Germany and Israel. In 1945, Blaustein was asked by FDR to attend early meetings, framing the United Nations. His major achievement was including positions on basic human rights.

Blaustein was a key-player in U.S.-Israeli relations. His relationship with David Ben-Gurion led to an accord on the status of American Jews and Israel (the Ben-Gurion-Blaustein Agreement. The Agreement, signed by both leaders, defined the post-statehood relationship between American Jewry and Israel for many decades. It laid the groundwork for two strong and independent Jewish communities who were nonetheless cognizant and respectful of one another's views and perspectives).

The entrepreneur and diplomat also arranged for hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of the Nazis. Later negotiations reflected the arrangements he started. Blaustein supported The Associated Jewish Charities, along with The Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation funding a variety of causes. Locally, among many things, he was instrumental in supporting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Jacob Blaustein died in 1970, leaving a rich legacy to his hometown and to the world.

Quirky, no-nonsense, funny, Marnie Winston-Macauley - writer, editor, author, lecturer, clinician, and administrator and founder of Strategic Relationship Thing - is a straight-shooter, who has a distinctive voice and takes on the world in her columns, features, practice, and books. Marnie, who did her graduate work at Columbia University writes relationship features and advice columns.