GOLD FEVER Part Three. Ken Salter
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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