The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1910-02-03
HOW PEARL BUTTONS ARE MADE
Interesting Article In InglenOOk by
Nephew OF Mrs. Crawford.

In the Inglenook Magazine fol
January, published at Elgin, Illinois
is an article on the pearl button in
dustry by C. MILFORD Robinson. Mr.
Robinson is a nephew of Mrs. j. N
Crawford of this city. The article is
an interesting one and the Leader
Herald considers it worthy of repro
duction:
Thirty miles below Davenport, Iowa
on the big bend of the Mississippi, is
the city of Muscatine. 1t is common
ly called the Pearl City" because OF
its pearl button industry. The smoke
of its thirty-five button factories
ascends day and night, To think of
| American-made pearl buttons is to
think of Muscatine. The city is the
cradle of the pearl button industry,
the producer of the greater part of
the total output of American-made
buttons, and the home of the largest
pearl button factory in the world.
This is the button age. The day of
pins and hooks is past We must
have buttons galore, not only for use
fulness but for adornment as well. A
button is small and simple thing to
look at but the process of its manu-
facture is not so simple. Compare
lively much more time and labor are
spent in making button than in
making the garment on which it is
worn.
Go with me through one of these
factories and watch the process of a
button in its making. We will first
go to the basement where tons and
tons of clam shells are stored These
shells are gathered from all large
rivers, the Mississippi and Illinois
rivers being the principal ones. But
these large rivers cannot supply the |
demand, SO many are shipped in from
the southern rivers Owing to the |
scarcity of these shells congress has
secured the site and appropri-
ated money for the construction of a |
fresh-water laboratory for the propa-
CATION of these bivalves.
During the summer months the
fishers are very numerous and
very busy. The fishing outfit consists
Of two long rods to which are at
tached numerous lines with three
pronged hooks. These hooks are
dragged along the bottom of the river.
They come in contact with the mussel
and the shell closes on them. They
ire then drawn up and the muscle
AIKEN off and the same process re-
,eated. The mussels are then taken /,
'ut and the shells shipped to the fac ,
cries.
There are two incentives for the /,
ishing of these shells. One is the
rice which they bring and the other
$ for the pearls which may be found
n them. The price of shells ranges
rom twenty to forty dollars per ton.
nd pearls are occasionally found q
'orth upward to a hundred dollars. I
II rare cases they sometimes exceed p
his.
We are now ready to proceed U
trough the factory In the basement V
lese shells are sorted as to their p
ind and size and put into tanks of s.
arm water to soak. Two of the prin- a
pal kinds of shells are known as r.
and ''washboards." te
After having been soaked for a few &c
avs the shells are then ready for the m
lifting department The operator al
dds the she'll with a pair OF spe-
ally-shaped tongs and while a o,
ream of water plays upon II it is al
lshed against a circular saw which m
It's out the blank buttons. The
'erage button is four lignes thick So
Id from four to twelve may be cut ov