Buttons

well known devices used for fastening clothing together, and as ornaments. A button is secured to one edge of a garment by thread or a rivet, and is then passed through a slit, buttonhole, or loop in the other edge. It is a substitute for pins, clasps, and buckles. Buttons are of two general forms. One has from two to four perforations near the center through which the fastening thread may be passed with a needle. The other form is provided with a shank made of wire or canvas, which may be sewed to the garment. The shank is sometimes passed through the fabric and fastened on the reverse side. The shank of a shoe button is sometimes fastened to the leather with a wire staple.

It would be difficult to name a material which has not been used in some form for buttons. Flat buttons with perforations are made chiefly of porcelain, glass, pearl, leather, vulcanized rubber, wood, brass, iron, silver, ivory, horn, tortoiseshell, bone, paper, plastic clay, vegetable ivory, etc. The latter material is the nut of a palm tree. It is turned easily and is a favorite material for buttons for suitings, owing to the fact that it is dyed readily to match any cloth whether plain, marbled, or mottled. Nine thousand tons of these nuts are imported yearly. The business of making buttons out of pearl shells has grown to be a large industry. Glass buttons with wire shanks are made in a great variety of colors. The most beautiful are manufactured in Bohemia. Metal buttons with a canvas shank are covered with cloth in many patterns to match that of which suits are made. Military buttons are made usually of brass with a wire shank. Venice, Prague, Paris, and Birmingham are centers of the industry. Button making was begun in the United States as early as 1753, and was well established in the manufacturing centers of New England fifty years later. Waterbury, Connecticut; East Hampton, Massachusetts; and Newark, New Jersey, are important button manufacturing centers.

The latest available statistics for the United States are those of 1905. Button manufactories, 275; capital invested, $7,783,900; annual value of buttons, $11,133,769. The number of buttons made in the United States during the year 1904 was 35,551,731 gross. The annual importation of buttons is estimated at $607,000.

See Pearl