Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/841

* BUTTON. 741 BUTTON. strong relief are stamped by a die placed in a stamping-press. See Dies. Buttons with lioles, wlien of pearl-shell, bone, wood, or ivory, are cut ith a tubular saw, turned separately in a lathe, and drilled. When of n)etal the blanks are punched, then stamped in dies to the required form ; the holes are punched and finished smooth, so as to round the sharp edges that would otherwise cut the thread. Glass buttons are usually made by taking a rod of glass of any color, softening the end by heat, and pressing it into a mold, each half of which is fixed to one limb of a pair of pincers. The shank is placed in a hole in the mold be- fore the melted glass is inserted. The manufacture of pearl buttons was intro- <luced into the United States about 1855. The raw material at first came from China, and entered free of duty. In Bohemia and else- where such buttons are manufactured in fam- ilies and by the poorer classes often as a house industry in which all members of the family can engage, the smaller children sewing the buttons on cards. In Austria, France, and Germany the work has largely been done by convicts. The shells are brought from the Red and Mediter- ranean seas, and there is said to be gieat danger that the beds will be exhausted, as it takes them twenty years to mature. During the last decade of the Nineteenth Century the manufacture of pearl bittons in the United States received a great impetus, owing to the discovery of fresh-water mollusks in the Mississippi River admirably adapted to this use. Of the 400 species of mussels found in the river, several varieties are suitable for button manufacture, but the best is the Quad- 'iiila ebena, or 'nigger-head.' which has a very thick shell, a black or dark-brouTi outside skin, and a glistening white interior. The fishing is conducted throughout the year, even in the coldest weather, under the ice, when shells are in best condition, being less brittle. On account of the shallowness of the river, fishing is ex- tremely easy, and is carried on so unceasingly, even during the spawning season, that imless measures are taken to regulate the matter, the banks will inevitably be exhausted. Another enemy to the life of the mollusks is the sewage pollution of the river. After the shells are purchased from the fishermen, they are soaked in barrels of fresh water from three to six days, to render them less brittle. They are next sawed into blanks with saws formed by steel strips bent into tubular form. A fine spray of water plays on the shell, to keep it cool and lessen the dust, which is very irritating to the respiratorv organs. The back of the button is then ground, to remove the skin and even the surface, and the front is polished and the de- pression made by means of an emery wheel. The holes are then drilled, and the buttons are ready for sorting, carding, and packing. The manufacture of buttons in the Mississippi Val- ley began at Muscatine, Iowa, in 1890. It is now the princi7)al business along a section of the river over 200 miles in length, extending from Fort iladison, Iowa, to Sabula, Iowa. In 1898, 7000 tons of mussels were used, at a cost of .$72,000; the manufactured output consisted of 2,2.50,000 gross of buttons, at a market value of $500,000. The unit of measure in button manufacture is a line, or one-fortieth of an inch, and it is stated that — in the United States at least — the cost of manufacture varies pretty directly ^^ith the diameter or number of lines of the button. The whole subject of the pearl- button industry of the Mississippi Valley Avas investigated in" 1809, by the United States Fish Commission, from whose reports much informa- tion concerning the industiy can be obtained. An interesting account of the development of the button industrv in the Unitc4 States will be found in Bulletin No. 172 of the Twelfth Census of the United States. It is here stated that brass buttons were manufactured in Philadel- phia as early as 1750, and, soon after, the numu- facture of "hard-wood buttons was begun by Benjamin Randolph in the same city. The first button-factory in Waterbury, Conn., which city is now the centre of the nietal-button industrj-, was established about 1800. The manufacture of covered buttons by machinery instead of by hand was begun in 1827 by Samuel Williston, of East- hampton, ]Mass. Horn buttons were made as early as 1812, the hoots of cattle forming the raw" material. Vegetable-ivory buttons have been made in the Unified States since 1859, and this branch now ranks third in the button inilustry. Various kinds of composition buttons have been made since the industr.y was started at Newark, N. J., in 1862, where "a button resembling veg- etable ivory was produced from certain fossil and vegetable gums, combined with finely com- minuted carbonate of lime, feldspar, or mica. Composition buttons are now made of many ma- terials, among them the Irish potato, which, hen combined with certain acids, becomes as hard as stone. Other materials are the casein from skim milk, blood, and brown sea-weed. Prior to 1900, 348 patents for button-machines and 1355 for the making of buttons had been issued by the United States Patent Office. A unique branch of the button industry is the manufacture of campaign and society buttons, and of buttons on which photographs are repro- duced. These are usually made from celluloid. The centres of the different branches of the button industry in the United States are as fol- lows: Bone buttons. Pemisylvania; brass but- tons, Connecticut, New York ; cloth buttons, Massachusetts ; composition buttons, Pennsyl- vania, New York; freshwater pearl-button blanks, Iowa, Illinois ; fresh-water pearl but- tons. New Y'ork, Iowa, Pennsylvania ; horn but- tons, Connecticut; ocean-pearl buttons. New York, New .Jersey, Pennsylvania : paper buttons. New Hampshire ; tin buttons. New Jersey ; veg- etable-ivory buttons. New Y'ork, Massachusetts, New Jersey. In 1850, according to the Census Bulletin named above, 59 button-making estab- lishments in the United States had an output valued at $9(U,359, while in 1900 the 238 estab- lishments reported valued their productions at $7,095,910. The value of imported buttons de- clined from .$2,170,046 in 1891 to $600,982 in 1900. In China a knob, or so-called button, is worn in the hat as a sign of rank, there being nine ranks, each of them signified by the material of which the button is made. The highest rank is indicated by a ruby; second by a coral; third, a saj)iiliire; fourth, lapis lazuli; fifth, crystal; sixth, white stone: seventh, plain gold; eighth and ninth, differently marked gold.