Button

BUTTON, a small piece of metal or other material which, pushed through a loop or buttonhole, serves as a catch between different parts of a garment, etc. The word is also used of other objects which have a projecting knob-like character, e.g., button mushrooms, the button of an electric bell-push, or the guard at the tip of a fencing foil; or which resemble a button in size and shape, as the button of metal obtained in assaying operations. The derivation is from Fr. bouton, apparently from the same root as bouter, to push.

At first buttons were apparently used for purposes of mentation; in Piers Plowman (1377) mention is made of a knife with "botones ouergylte," and in Lord Berners's translation of Froissart's Chronicles (1525) of a book covered with crimson velvet with "ten botons of syluer and gylte." While this use has • continued, especially in connection with women's dress, they began to be employed as fastenings at least as early as the 15th century. As a term of comparison for something trivial or worthless, the word is found in the 14th century. Buttons of distinctive colour or patterns, or bearing a portrait or motto, are often worn, especially in the United States, as a oration, or sign of membership of a society or of adherence to a political party; among the most honoured of such buttons are those worn by members of the military order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, organized in 1865 by officers who had fought in the Civil War. Chinese officials during the Empire wore a button or knob on their hats as a mark of rank, the grade being denoted by its colour and material (see MANDARIN). Many varieties of buttons are used on clothing, but they may be divided into two main classes cording to the arrangement by which they are attached to the garment ; in one class they are provided with a shank which may consist of a metal loop or of a tuft of cloth or similar material, while in the other they are pierced with holes through which are passed threads. To these two classes roughly correspond two broad differences in the method of manufacture, according as the buttons are composite and made up of two or more pieces, or are simply shaped discs of a single material ; some composite buttons, however, are provided with holes, and simple metal buttons sometimes have metal shanks soldered or riveted on them. From an early period buttons of the former kind were made by needlework with the aid of a mould or former, but about 1807 B. Sanders, a Dane who had been ruined by the bombardment of Copenhagen, introduced an improved method of manufacturing them at Birmingham. His buttons were formed of two discs of metal locked together by having their edges turned back on each other and enclosing a filling of cloth or pasteboard; and by methods of this kind, carried out by elaborate automatic machinery, buttons are readily produced, presenting faces of silk, mohair, brocade or other material required to har monize with the fabric on which they are used. Sander's buttons at first had metal shanks, but about 1825 his son invented flexible shanks of canvas or other substance through which the needle could pass freely in any direction. The mechanical manufacture of covered buttons was started in the United States in 1827 by Samuel Williston, of Easthampton (Mass.), who in 1834 joined forces with Joel and Josiah Hayden, of Haydenville.

Buttons 140 Guineas a Gross.

The number of materials that have been used for making buttons is very large—metals such as brass and iron for the cheaper kinds, and for more expen sive ones, gold and silver, sometimes ornamented with jewels, filigree work, etc. ; ivory, horn, bone, and mother-of-pearl or other nacreous products of shellfish ; vegetable ivory and wood; glass, porcelain, paper, celluloid and artificial compositions; and even the casein of milk, and blood. Brass buttons were made at Birmingham in 1689, and in the following century the metal button industry underwent considerable development in that city. Matthew Boulton, the elder, about 1745, introduced great im provements in the processes of manufacture, and when his son started the Soho works in 1767 one of the departments was devoted to the production of steel buttons with facets, some of which sold for 140 guineas a gross. Gilt buttons also came into fashion about the same period. In this "Augustan age" of the Birmingham button industry, when there was a large export trade, the profits of manufacturers who worked on only a mod est scale amounted to £3,000 and £4,000 a year, and workmen earned from L2 to £4 a week. At one time the buttons had each to be fashioned separately by skilled artisans, but gradually the cost of production was lessened by the adoption of mechanical processes, and instead of being turned out singly and engraved or otherwise ornamented by hand, they came to be stamped out in dies which at once shape them and impress them with the desired pattern. Ivory buttons are among the oldest of all. Horn buttons were made at Birmingham at least by 1777; towards the middle of the 19th century Smile Bassot invented a widely-used process for producing them from the hoofs of cattle, which were sof t ened by boiling. Pearl buttons are made from pearl oyster shells obtained from various parts of the world, and after being cut out by tubular drills are shaped and polished by machinery. Buttons of vegetable ivory can be readily dyed. Glass buttons are es pecially made in Czechoslovakia, as also are those of porcelain, which were invented about 1840 by an Englishman, R. Prosser of Birmingham.

The Birmingham Button Trade.

The English button in dustry has always been centred in Birmingham, though consider able quantities are also manufactured in London. A large propor tion of the industry is in the hands of a combine formed in 190 7 by the amalgamation of several of the largest concerns. Rates of wages in the British industry are governed by a Trade Board that was established in 1920. In 1927, when an application was made by the British Button Manufacturers' Association for a duty on imports, it was stated that the industry was then carried on by 53 firms employing 3,629 people, whereas it was estimated that in 1913 the number of persons employed was about 6,85o. Twelve of these 53 firms, it was said, were responsible for 85% of the total production, and the turnover of the whole trade was esti mated at £750,000. Figures of production given by the manufac turers at the inquiry into their application for protection were, in gross, as follow: 1921, 4,300,00o; 1922, 6,300,000; 00o; 1924, 5,60o,000; 1925, 6,200,000; 1926, 5,000,00o. During the same years imports of buttons were, in gross : 1921, 1922, 7,270,000; 1923, 6,966,000; 1924, 9,099,00o; 1925, 10, 645,00o; 1926, 9,000,000.

All types of buttons are manufactured by English firms, but their principal output consists of linen, mother-of-pearl, composi tion, metal and fancy buttons. Germany, a big button manufac turing country, concentrates chiefly on fancy and Galalith buttons; France on mother-of-pearl and fancy metal ; Italy on so-called vegetable ivory (the product of the corozo nut from South America) ; Japan on certain classes of mother-of-pearl; and Czechoslovakia on glass, china and paste (imitation precious stones). London is the centre of the world's trade in mother-of pearl shells for buttons, which are brought from the Colonies (principally Australia) and auctioned in Mincing Lane in their raw state. They sell at anything from 8os. to nos. per cwt., according to quality. These shells are distinct from the river mother-of-pearl which are used to make a cheaper class of button. Buttons are measured by the diameter, the unit being a "line." In all countries except France io lines are the equivalent of approximately fin. and sizes commence at 8 lines, rising in 2's to as much as i oo lines. Three French lines are the equivalent of 10 English. In the United States few buttons were made until the beginning of the 19th century, when the manufacture of metal buttons was started at Waterbury (Conn.), which became a centre of that industry. In 1812 Aaron Benedict began to make ivory and horn buttons at the same place. Buttons of vegetable ivory, now one of the most important branches of the American button industry, were first made at Leeds (Mass.) , in 1859 by an Englishman, A. W. Critchlow, and in 1875 commercial success was obtained in the production of composition buttons at Spring field (Mass.). Pearl buttons were made on a small scale in but their manufacture received an enormous impetus in the last decade of the 19th century, when J. F. Boepple began, at Musca tine (Iowa), to utilize the unio or "niggerhead" shells found along the Mississippi.

By 185o, there were 59 United States button manufacturing concerns, using materials valued at $324,837, the output being worth $964,359. In 1919 the number of firms had risen to 557, producing buttons valued at $41,840,000, and employing 15,60o persons. The United States, however, do not do a large export trade, being principally employed in meeting domestic require ments—or, rather, helping to meet them, for large quantities are also imported.

See The Button Industry, by W. Unite Jones; Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd. (1924).

(Cephalanthus occidentalis), a North American shrub or small tree of the madder family (Rubiaceae), called also button willow and globe-flower. It grows in swamps and low grounds from New Brunswick to Minnesota southward to Florida and Texas, and also in California, Mexico and Cuba. In the northern parts of its range it is a shrub 3 ft. to 12 ft. high, but in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas it attains a height of 4o ft. to 5o ft., with a straight trunk a foot in diameter. It bears ovate, entire, pointed leaves and small, fragrant, creamy white flowers in globular stalked heads about an inch in diameter. In the north eastern States the button-bush is sparingly cultivated as an orna mental plant.