BUTTONS. We count the buttons on our coats to the old rhyme— Rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.
Even though the fortune which they foretell may not come true, buttons are nevertheless a very interesting subject for study.
In early times, clothes were fastened with pins, brooches, buckles, ties, and sashes or girdles.
But as early as the 15th century it appears that someone discovered that a loop slipped over a button, or a button pushed through a slit in the cloth, would make a good clothes fastener. Buttons were also worn as ornaments, and those desiring to be dressed in the ex treme of fashion would display a wealth of buttons sewed on their clothes, without regard to useful ness. For this reason some reli gious bodies, such as the stricter Mennonites in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, still forbid the wearing of buttons, and allow only hooks and eyes on the garments of their members.
Some buttons which seem only put on for ornament once had a very definite use. This is true of the buttons on men's coat sleeves, which were once used to button back the sleeves to leave the hands free; and those at the back of the frock-coat, which were used to fasten up the long skirts of the coat when riding horseback.
Buttons at first were very expensive. They were often made of gold, silver, or pearl, ornamented by designs and inlaid with precious metals and jewels.
They had to be shaped and decorated by skilled tradesmen, working painstakingly on one button at a time. In a modern button factory practically every operation in making many kinds of buttons is done by machines, which are so easily operated that boys and girls can run them. A great variety of materials are used in button-making —fresh-water mussel shells, ocean shells, vegetable ivory, cloth, bone, hoof, horn, brass, iron, steel, glass, agate, celluloid, porce lain, leather, paper board, and various kinds of com position.
In the United States the button industry has an annual output of over $20, 000,000. It centers in five states — New York, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. New York leads with more factories than all the other states put together.
Where Our Pearl Buttons Come From Fresh-water pearl but tons, made chiefly from the mussel shells of the Mississippi River, are the most important class, both in quantity and value, produced in the United States. With
proper attention the supply of these shells will endure indefinitely. Their manu facture was established in 1890, before which most of the pearl buttons in this country were imported from Austria-Hungary and Ger many. Within 25 years the imported article had been practically eliminated from the home market. However, the Japanese have now begun the manufacture of pearl buttons, using the dobugai shells taken from the inland lakes of China; and owing to the cheapness of Japanese labor these but tons can be produced at a lower cost and compete seri ously with the American product.
Ocean pearl buttons are made chiefly from the white shell from West Austra lia, the yellow shell from Manila, and the black shell from Tahiti. These buttons are used principally on better grade shirts, shirt waists, skirts and dresses, and underwear, while the fresh-water buttons are used on medium and cheaper grades. Machines cut out the button pieces from the shell with tubular saws, split them into discs, drill the holes for fastening the but tons, and smooth and polish them—all with practically no hand labor.
Vegetable ivory buttons are the next in importance. They are made from tagua (also called corozo) nuts, obtained principally in Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. The nuts, which are covered with a hard shell, grow in heads of 10 to 30 together, and vary in size from a hickory nut to a a large horse-chestnut, the smaller varieties having the finer texture. The seeds of the Palma dum growing in upper Egypt are used to some extent as a substitute for the tagua nut by Italian manufacturers, but these are said to be less satisfactory than the South Ameri can product. The tagua nuts are dried from three to six weeks, the hard shells removed in revolving drums, the nuts cut into slabs, and after a moist bath to prevent cracking they are turned on lathes into button blanks. They are then shaped, drilled, and polished somewhat like the shell buttons.