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Including Focus on Development of 19th Century American Mother of Pearl Button Industry
By Crazy Crow Trading Post ~ May 5, 2021
Including Focus on Development of 19th Century American Mother of Pearl Button Industry
By Crazy Crow Trading Post ~ May 5, 2021
The oldest button, estimated to be about 5000 years old, was found in the Mohenjo-daro region in the Indus Valley (modern day Pakistan). It features a decorative flat face that fits into a loop, mostly made of curved shell. According to Ian McNeil in An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology, this button “was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening.”
Buttons were also used by the Ancient Romans. However, their flowing garments required hefty buttons made of strong materials like wood, horn, and bronze. These poked large unsightly holes into garments, and soon fell out of favor among Ancient Roman clothiers. The Romans also invented the fibula as an alternative to the button. This was an early version of the safety pin, though the design was lost until it was rediscovered again during the 19th century Industrial Era in the United States.
It is hard to imagine relatively ‘modern’ times without buttons for the uses known to them today. Yet it was not until 13th century Germany when buttons featuring that most important counterpart, buttonholes, were used to keep clothing closed and they also started to be used for fastening shoes, tunics, surcoats, hoods, etc. In Europe, close-fitting clothes became stylish among nobles and royalty, and buttons were used to help the garments fit more snugly around the wearer. By the 13th and 14th century, buttons were widespread throughout Europe.
In 16th century France, button makers’ guilds started to appear. These guilds regulated the production of buttons and passed laws regarding their use. Though buttons of the Middle Ages are functional, they were seen as a symbol of prosperity and prestige.
The discussion of button history that follows will focus on the ‘button-fastener-era’ so-to-speak that followed the 13th century invention of the buttonhole.
In the 18th century luxury fabric buttons were largely replaced by metals and ivory, although embroidered buttons remained popular to complement certain garments. Pewter, a common metal of this time, was used to make either molded or stamped-out buttons. Cast brass buttons, particularly calamine brass, with ornamental designs, were popular on both military and civilian dress.
Matthew Boulton, an English manufacturer, introduced the bright and costly cut-steel button in the middle of the 18th century. During the first quarter of the 19th century, a less costly stamped steel button was made in an openwork pattern. Gilded brass buttons that were dipped into a mixture of mercury and gold were also in wide use.
The two-shell metal button was introduced about the same time as the stamped-steel type by a Danish manufacturer in England. The two shells, thin metal disks that enclosed a small piece of cloth or pasteboard, were crimped together on the edges. That same manufacturer also originated the canvas shank. By 1830 fabric-covered buttons were being made mechanically. Animal horns and hoofs were also beginning to be used for buttons as their material could be made malleable by heating and then cutting, dying and molding.
Pearl or Shell has been used to produce buttons from pre-colonial times. In the U.S., most of the pearl buttons were produced from imported freshwater or oceanic shells prior to 1891. Some marine shell buttons were manufactured in the US in 1855, and French colonists used Mississippi mussels to produce pearl cuff buttons in a report noted in 1802 by French Minister of the Interior Dr. F. A. Michaux. However, early attempts to use native freshwater shells in Knoxville in 1883 failed, either due to foreign competition or inadequate equipment. Abalone shells from the Pacific coast were first fashioned into buttons in 1750 and continue to be produced today.
The use of the pearly shells of sea mollusks for buttons increased with the mechanization of the process. The shell had to be separated into its component layers by treating them with a nitric acid solution. Blanks were then cut out by tubular saws. Holes were then bored in the blanks for sewing, and an engraved decoration may be mechanically applied.
It was only when mechanization took place that mollusk shells, in particular pearl shells, were used in any quantity for button making. The button industry reached its peak in the late 19th century producing billions of pearl buttons which were used for buttoning up every sort of garments, shoes, and accessories – in fact too many uses to name here.
Mother of pearl buttons and other shell buttons are both types of natural buttons made from materials found in nature, rather than being mass-produced, like plastic or metal buttons. Mother of pearl shell is just one type of shell used to make buttons—you can also find buttons made of nautilus, abalone, oyster, mussel, and snail shells.
Development of the American Pearl Shell Button Industry
By the mid-Victorian era, the pearl shell trade had reached its height in England with some 2,000 tons of shells being imported in 1859 from the East. By the 1890s there were over 200 factories in London and 4,000–5,000 people employed in making buttons in Birmingham.
At this time, the American manufacturer John F. Boepple (who came to the U.S. from Germany to avoid tariffs and find a steady source of shell) discovered that the bend of the Mississippi River near Muscatine, Iowa caused shells to accumulate and create perfect conditions for mother of pearl button making. He began to use the less iridescent but abundant freshwater mussel shells found along the Mississippi River and its tributaries to make his buttons. At production peak over one-third of the world’s pearl shell buttons came from the freshwater mollusk shells found in this area.
As with so many thriving industries, history and changing tastes caused the pearl shell button industry to decline almost to extinction in the 20th century with the impact of the over-fishing of the pearl shell itself, with the end of imports of pearl shells during the two world wars and the years following them and the advent of cheap, mass-produced plastic substitutes.
A lack of equipment designed to automate the manufacture of pearl buttons initially limited their mass production. This was solved when the Barrys’ Plumbing Company (somewhat like a bicycle shop owner inventing the airplane only eight years later) designed a new machine that could produce better buttons with less labor. In 1895, they devoted the company solely to the manufacture of pearl button machinery for various aspects of button production, including cutting, classifying, hand facing, and drilling. That same year, they introduced the “Barry Double Automatic” button finishing machine, causing production to expand rapidly and over half the town of Muscatine in some way found itself employed in the button industry. The Barry Double Automatic became the centerpiece of pearl button manufacturing, performing the functions of carving the design on the face of the button and drilling the holes two or four into the button simultaneously.
Each button finishing plant contained rows of Double Automatic Machines. It took seven shell cutting machines to supply just one Double Automatic that, in turn, was able to produce over 21,600 buttons daily. The Double Automatic transformed the button industry by creating a more uniform pearl button that could be produced at one-fourth the cost. The machine helped make Muscatine’s the “Pearl Button Capital of the World”. Due to the high-quality of the Barry machines, many of the Double Automatics were adapted for plastic many years later.
Of course, before the machines could produce buttons, the material for those shells had to be accumulated and prepared. To this end, many worked in that famous Muscatine Mississippi River bend harvesting the mollusks, steaming them, and opening the shells. Others punched the blank discs from the shimmery shell insides to send off to the plants, while others worked in the plants themselves with the double automatic machines drilling the buttonholes and carving button designs. Some mothers and children even worked from home sewing buttons to cards for the manufacturers.
Mollusk harvesting was not limited to the immediate Muscatine area. New Ulm, Minnesota on the Minnesota River, about 320 miles to the northwest of Muscatine was the hub of shell harvesting in the Minnesota River. About 52 train-car loads of shells each summer were hauled out of the New Ulm area to the factory in Muscatine where they entered the button manufacturing process.
Peak production was hit in 1905 when about 1.5 billion buttons were being produced annually in Muscatine. Shells left over from the process were so common they were used in street paving!
Eventually, various factors intervened to cause the decline of the mother of pearl button industry. The shells in the rivers were depleted and the production of cheaper plastic buttons became more popular. Today, many of the mother of pearl buttons are produced in Asia from different kinds of shells.
Classification and Chronology of Button Development
The button classification that follows has been organized according to material. While most types of buttons survive for archaeological examination, those made of wood, paper, and cloth offer fewer opportunities for study as they are so prone to deterioration. As a result, paper buttons are part of this list, due to their rapid decay in the soil. Wooden and cloth buttons, however, are more likely to survive in part and thus present some evidence.
Bone Buttons: In the 17th and 18th centuries, bone buttons were often made in the home. They were usually made of cow or pig bone by soaking or steaming to softening. It is then separated into sheets of the thickness of the desired button, and a circular saw is used to cut out and remove the button blanks. These blanks are polished, and drilled for holes so they could be attached to garments. In the late 19th century, some are found mounted on metal shanks. Plain bone buttons tend to be utilitarian in nature, such as fastening undergarments. Carved or inlaid bone buttons were produced in the second half of the 19th century in factories and were intended for more elaborate outer wear.
Celluloid Buttons: Celluloid was the very first manmade plastic, but it wasn’t completely synthetic. In the mid-1800s, a British chemist named Alexander Parkes developed celluloid using cellulose, a derivative of plants, more specifically wood and cotton fibers.
Celluloid has been used for button manufacturing since its origin in 1869 to the present. It was originally developed to imitate the more expensive ivory, and was intricately carved and inlaid. Later examples were ‘window’ buttons, in which a thin clear layer of celluloid covered a variety of decorative designs You can detect this material (compared to ivory) by rubbing the suspected button vigorously. As celluloid heats, it gives off an acidic odor. Do not store celluloid buttons in airtight containers as they release gases that will disintegrate themselves and other buttons nearby.
Ceramic Buttons: Ceramic material was fashioned as buttons from at least the early 1700s and continues today. Porcelain buttons appeared in the mid-19th century, and may be dated by motif or back marks. Small calico buttons, which were transfer printed with checkered and calico designs, and birdcages, which were hollow two-piece buttons with the backs slightly extended and three to five sew-through holes, were very common, especially in women’s clothing. After the McKinley tariff act of 1891, imported ceramic buttons were stamped with either country of origin or registry marks.
Cloth Buttons: Cloth does not often survive burial, but the metal or bone structural elements of these buttons does. Fabric was either stretched over metal/bone hoops or thread was woven around these bases in a lace-like manner. The process of making cloth covered buttons was automated in the early 19th century and was returned to partial hand construction in dressmaker shops during the latter half of the century as fashion dictated buttons be covered to match the garments they adorned. Metal bases or hoops with corresponding metal shanks attached were not developed until the early 19th century, and thick metal rings with a single hole in the center may represent examples of the flexible canvas shank, developed in 1825.
Enameled Buttons: Particularly noteworthy are the enamel buttons from the 19th and 20th centuries. Cloisonné buttons were the most difficult to produce because the process demanded that tiny threads of wire be soldered to a base. The resulting cavities were then filled with enamel and the button was fired. These buttons consisted of metal or glass bases which may or may not have been stamped with designs. Color is built up upon the bases by means of applying several coats of colored glass powder with repeated firings.
These brass picture buttons from the Victorian era were stamped with images taken from a variety of topics of interest to their owners. In fact, if you wanted to tell the world you were a fan of a work of literature, you’d have buttons featuring scenes from the novel or story on your garments. Other picture buttons featured nature themes such as flora and fauna, sciences (stars and moons), or mythology (cupids and fairies).
Glass Buttons: Glass has been used to make buttons since the 18th century in Britain. ‘Drop’ buttons, or those constructed of globs of glass and polished or faceted and mounted on a U- shaped metal shank (rather like a staple), were imported from Britain. Blown glass buttons with glass shanks appear in the 19th century and perhaps previously. Buttons of blown glass with metal shanks were developed after 1900. Lacey glass, both that of the pressed tableware fame and look-alikes, was produced from 1825 to 1870, primarily for women’s clothing. In 1840, milk glass buttons, simple utilitarian two-to-four-hole sew through styles of opaque white pressed glass, began to replace brass and gilt buttons in men’s wear.
Many black glass buttons were made during the Victorian era. These black colored glass buttons were made to imitate the true jet buttons worn by Queen Victoria during her mourning time for the death of Prince Albert, her husband. The majority of glass buttons made during the 20th century were made by skilled button makers in today’s Czechoslovakia. Between 1918 and 1939 popular styles of glass buttons included pictorial, cut crystal, and realistic (pictorial styles). To identify if a button is made from glass, lightly tap it against your tooth or a glass table. If it is glass, it will make a clinking sound that is unmistakable.
Horn Buttons: Another pre-colonial tradition is represented by horn buttons. Natural horn buttons were slices of antler or the solid portion near the tip of the horn. These blanks were fashioned in much the same way as bone buttons. Processed horn buttons were patented in 1830. The hollow portion of the horn was soaked, straightened, and became so plastic that blanks could be stamped or molded. These buttons are often dyed black. Composite buttons are made from ground horn and hoof mixed with various resins which are then molded into various decorative styles.
Ivory Buttons: Ivory is another natural material that has been carved and inlaid as buttons since precolonial times. Several U.S. firms imported both the finished ivory buttons and the raw materials to manufacture them. In the 19th century, vegetable ivory, or corozo nut, was used as a replacement material. In 1869, celluloid was also developed to imitate ivory.
This substitute for genuine ivory buttons was named vegetable ivory because it resembles real ivory though it is not as heavy. These buttons were first introduced in 1862 at an exposition in Paris, France. Vegetable ivory became the choice button for men’s jackets (whose production peaked from 1870 until 1920), which were introduced during that time and replaced old dress coats. Although plastic buttons have largely replaced them, vegetable ivory buttons are still manufactured and used today.
One way to identify vegetable ivory is to look at the material in or around the shank or buttonholes. Sometimes see will see unprocessed materials in or around these holes. In the button dying process, only the outer layers took the color, so the inside of the button would remain the natural color of the nut. The buttons were usually dyed before the holes were made. Also, if observed a UV light, vegetable ivory buttons will be a warm orange color.
Metal Buttons: Various types of metal have been made into buttons since at least the 16th century. In the late 19th century, aluminum buttons were very fashionable due to the newness and relative scarcity of the material (. aluminum was even more expensive than gold). Brass, tombric, or yellow metal buttons were alloys of various mixtures, and were often more orange in color in earlier years due to the high amount of copper used. These buttons were most popular from the late 18th century until 1820, when they were replaced by gilded, or gold-plated brass, buttons. This ‘Golden Age’ of buttons lasted until 1850 when milk glass buttons came to predominate traditional men’s wear. Between 1800 and 1870 iron buttons were most popular. These were inexpensive stamped buttons, usually with two to five sew-through holes, although some two-piece self-shanked iron buttons have been found.
Some metal buttons were ornamental, others were embossed with patterns or pictures. There are metal buttons from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War era used on military uniforms, many with military symbols on them.
Silver Buttons: Silver has been used for button manufacture since the 16th century. Early forms (up to the 18th century) are often linked buttons. These pairs of buttons represent a style of fastening which disappears in the 1700s, in which the shank of a button is attached by links to another button or a toggle. These pairs of linked buttons were found on men’s trousers or coats. Several other styles of silver buttons were in style during the 18th century, including capped, or ‘gentleman’s’ buttons. These buttons were favored for both military officers’ garments and for civilian men of ‘standing’. A base of wood, horn, ivory, or bone was capped with a layer of silver, usually plain. Silver became stylish again in the latter half of the 19th and 20th centuries among women, often fashioned as window or picture buttons. White metal, or pewter, was the name given to a variety of white colored alloys. Pewter buttons were popular from 1700 to 1820, and then were revived in the 1850s. These buttons were molded, often being homemade. These pewter buttons were either self-shanked from the molding process or were attached by wire shanks. Iron shanks were attached to pewter buttons after 1800, and pewter buttons often carry maker’s marks on the backside. This practice began around 1800 and was widespread by 1820. Britannia buttons were a specific alloy, usually around 90% tin and 10% antimony. These were developed in 1770 and were always stamped ‘Britannia’ on imports.
Rubber Buttons: Rubber has been used for buttons since the 1850s. Patented in 1851 by Nelson Goodyear, hard rubber buttons went into production almost immediately, but did not become popular until the middle part of that decade. Often, these buttons will be back marked with ‘Goodyear 1851 ‘ or ‘Goodyear 1849-1951’, referring to the patent dates. Rubber buttons were often used as advertisem*nts, stamped, or molded with slogans and often handed out as consumers promotions.
Shell Buttons: Buttons can be made from many kinds of freshwater and marine shells, from abalones to scallops and a variety of mollusks, so it is difficult to assign any specific characteristics to them. Shell buttons can be carved from almost any layer of the shell, and so they vary widely in color, shape, and size. The inner lining of the shells of mollusks such as oysters and mussels has an opalescent quality, due to the presence of a substance called nacre. In oysters, nacre is the raw material that forms into pearls. This gives the inner lining of mollusk shells a beautiful, pearly quality referred to as “mother of pearl.” Mother of pearl buttons are made from this lining. Shell buttons have been used in many cultures throughout history, as they are relatively easy for pre-industrial cultures to produce. Mother of pearl buttons became extremely popular during the early 19th century and remained so through the Victorian era. Refer to the above section on the development of the shell button industry in America.
Wood Buttons: Wood was used to produce buttons in colonial crafts shops and homes. During the 18th century, most wooden buttons were plain and utilitarian. Carved, painted, inlaid and otherwise decorated wooden buttons were popular in the 19th century.
Button Trivia
The word button is from the French word bouton, meaning bud or knob – buttons, as ornaments, date back several thousand years.
Until the 19th century, most buttons were used for men’s clothing. Hooks and lacing were the norm for women’s clothes. After the mid-1800s, women became the primary consumers of buttons.
Left vs. Right: Men’s garments wrap from left to right with the button on the right side. Most men were right-handed and dressed themselves whereas servants dressed wealthy women. Placing buttons on the left side (opposite side as mens’) made it possible for servants to face the buttons while completing the task. Also, most women were right-handed and held their babies in their left arm to nurse. Easy access was essential.
Back Marks: Many buttons dating after 1800 possess back marks, which provide some dating and collection of associated information. Metal buttons were often stamped with the names of makers or places. Porcelain buttons after 1891 are impressed as being imported, and some show British registry marks. Some types of synthetic buttons are molded with place names or brand names. Advertisem*nts and company uniform buttons often contain datable slogans.
Button-Down Collars: These collars did serve a purpose at one time. Going for a horseback ride with your shirt collar constantly flapping in your face proved annoying as these collars were originally attached separately. Buttoning them down was a perfect solution, especially for polo players. In 1896, Brooks Brothers offered these as “The Original Polo Shirt.”
Although zippers entered the clothing-closure scene around the turn of the 20th century, buttons remain popular. Why? Zippers can jam and warp or catch little children’s fingers. Hook-and-eyes and laces have their adherents, but their widespread use and acceptance is nowhere near that of the button.
The first political button was used at the first U.S. presidential inauguration, when metal pins bearing the phrase “Long live the president” and George Washington’s initials were worn by his supporters.
Button References
Buttoning Down the Past: A Look at Buttons as Indicators of Chronology and Material Culture Sarah Elizabeth Marcel University of Tennessee – Knoxville Web Page
Encyclopaedia Britannica Web Page
A Brief Guide to Buttons: Samuel Windsor Web Page
Buttonholes for Buttons First Appeared In 13th Century Germany Web Page
A Sift Through the Remnants of Iowa’s Forgotten Fashion Scene – For decades, the Mississippi River town of Muscatine was the pearl-button capital of the world. HARRISON COOK, SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 Web Page
Clamming industry boomed in New Ulm in early 1900s – EDIE SCHMIERBACH Mankato Free Press Mar 22, 2015 Web Page
The Simple, Humble, Surprisingly Sexy Button – A visual history. By Jude Stewart Web Page
Mother of Pearl Vs. Shell Buttons – By: Emily Maggrett – Updated On: September 28, 2017 Web Page
