BUTTON (Fr. boa ton, bud, button, knob. literally something pushing out, from bouter, to push; ef. Engl. butt). A term applied to the xvell-known appendages to dress used either for fastening or for ornament; to a sort of oblong latch used by joiners and cabinet-makers for fastening the lids of boxes, doors of closets. etc.; and. in technical language, to the mass of fused metal found at the bottom of a crucible or (mite] ftztr fusing or assaying.
The use of buttons as an article of dress is a product of modern civilization, as savages em ploy strings to fasten their clothing together. The Greeks and ttomans also employed strings and girdles, the loose, flowing nature of their garments not requiring a more secure fastening. Buttons were first fastened to the clothing for ornamental purposes. The next step was the use of loops and buttons, the evolution of the buttonhole coming last of all. Buttons were first employed in Southern Europe in the Thir teenth or Fourteenth Century, and the manu facture of buttons in England dates only from the reign of Elizabeth as a trade of impor tance. It has undergone several extraordinary changes, produced chiefly by the ever-varying fashions in dress; but also by some simple, though ingenious, inventions, as well as by for eign competition. In Great Britain, Birming ham has always been the principal seat of the button manufacture. What has been called the 'Augustan Age' of button-making in that city included the latter portion of the Eighteenth and the early part of the Nineteenth centuries, when it was the fashion to wear coats 'loaded with innumerable gilt buttons,' and when em ployers on a moderate scale in this In annfactui e were making incomes of from £2000 to £3000 a year, and their workmen from 12 to £4 per week, There are, in general, three kinds of buttons: Those whiell are sewed to the garment through holes in the button itself; those which have shanks of metal; those which have. in place of the metal shank, a tuft or layer of felt or other cloth. The last two kinds are usually made on the shell plan. there being two plates of metal with a filling of pasteboard or cloth be tween, each having the edges turned back, and the one securely pressed into the other by ma chine•y. The face of the button may be covered with cloth or may be of decorated metal. The Lae]; has a hole or collet in the centre, through which the shank or cloth tuft is intro duced. The shell button was invented by B. San
ders, a Dane, who, in 1807, moved from Cu]en hagen to Birmingham, and there began the manu facture of buttons. Ile used a metal shank, and his son introduced the cloth tuft in its place. A further modification of the button was made later, when in place of the tuft a thin layer of cloth was secured by a metal plate to the back of the button, which was to be sewed on by means of this loose layer of cloth. At the close of the Nineteenth Century the tendency of fashion was to abandon in a eonsiderable degree the shell button, and to return to the older form with two, three, or four holes. Shanks, when used, are often fastened directly to a solid but ton, especially if it be of metal.
Among the other materials which have had a great in their day, it is found that but tons made of hoof, under the name of 'horn buttons,' originally introduced more than a half century ago by E. Bassot of Paris, were for a good many years most extensively manufac tured at Birmingham and sent to all parts of the world. The hoofs are first boiled in large kettles and then cut into fragments. These are shaped into buttons, which are then placed under a hydraulic press to stamp various pat terns on them. Another machine hones the holes, and still another polishes them. An average factory produces from 1500 to 2000 gross per week.
Vegetable ivory has long been a favorite ma terial for the manufacture of buttons, because it is readily dyed and turned in the lathes. (See ATTALEA.) It is the fruit of a South American palm called the coroza-nut, and re sembles in appearance true ivory, though some what softer. The nuts cost in France, in 1899 (according to a States consular report), front $3.81 to $5.71 per 100 kilograms (220 pounds). The nuts are first shelled by means of a rotary sheet-iron drum, provided on the in terior with sharp, three-edged irons. The nuts are then cut into halves, out of which buttons are bored, or into blocks which are formed into buttons by a shaping machine. The dyeing process requires much skill and chemical knowl edge, and each factory has its carefully guarded secrets. The buttons are dried in wire trays, where they are subjected to a certain degree of heat. They are then polished by means of a large, revolving, felt-lined barrel, by polishing stones, and by hand.