The mirror., 1922-07-06
THE BUTTON INDUSTRY
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terlal.
Vegetable ivory buttons have been made
in the United States since 1859. This branch
now ranks third in the button industry.
Various kinds of composition buttons
have been made at Newark, New Jersey,
since 1862, where button resembling
vegetable ivory was produced from GER
tain fossil and vegetable gums combined
with finely comminuted carbonate of lime,
feldspar or mica. Composition buttons are
being manufactured from various mater
ials, among them the Irish potato, which
when combined with certain acids becomes
as hard as stone. Other materials are the
casein from skim milk, blood and brown
seaweed.
Vegetable ivory is one of the most popu-
lar materials for the making of buttons.
It is made from the fruit of South Amer
ican palm called the coroza nut, and really
resembles pure ivory, though of course con-
siderably softer. They are easy to man.
ufacture on account of their susceptibility
to dye and the ease with which they can
be turned in lathe. The big romance
in the button industry, as far as the United
States is concerned, resulted from the TAX
ing of bath in the Sangamon River, in
Illinois, by ]. F. Boepple in July, 1887.
That bath was the direct cause of the
Inauguration of the pearl button industry
in this country which has since developed
to a marvellous extent. More pearl but
tons are now being made than all others.
While plunging around in the water
Boepple cut his foot, and being of cur
ious temperament, sought to ascertain the
cause of the accident. To his amazement
he found the bottom of the river to be
covered with mussel shells. They were just
exactly what he had been looking for since
coming to America from his home in Of
tensen, Germany, near Hamburg, where he
had been employed as turner and button
worker. A few years before leaving there
a fellow workman brought to the shop
small box of shells of variety of which
they had no knowledge. He said they
had been shipped to his father years pre-
viously from some place in America about
200 miles southwest of Chicago. At odd
times he experimental on the shells and
convinced himself they would make good
buttons. The following year he packed
his tools and small turning lathe and
embarked for America, determined to find
the place that produced such wonderful
shells. The use of the river as bathtub
revealed the hidden treasure, which today
enables the fond mother to place a wee
pearl button on her baby's first nightie,
and everybody else to use these buttons
from childhood to old age.
Boepple inaugurated the present great
pearl button industry by starting factory
at Muscatine, Iowa, in 1891.
1t is fact, however, that in the late
eighties pearl button factories were in
operation at Cincinnati, Ohio, and St.
Paul, Minnesota, but they used imported
ocean pearl shells, although their factories
were on the banks of excellent shell-bear-
ing streams. 1t is one of the strange
ironies of life that "a workman had to ira
vel three thousand miles to show those peo-
pie that thousands of tons of raw ma
terial lay at their very door.
The demand for shells for button max
ing has brought into existence the mussel
fishing industry. The men engaged in
mussel fishing gather from 10000 to $4,000
tons of shells annually, worth from $780,
GOO to 100000. In addition to this they
find from 100000 to 100000 worth of
pearls every year.
There are approximately 500 species of
fresh-water mussels in the United States.
The commercial species are practically re-
stricted to flowing waters derived from
the drainage of limestone regions. Such