Civilian shirt buttons

[2ndNHDOC]

I would like to begin making some civilian style shirts and was wondering what would be the recommended type of button to use.(bone wood tin etc).

Thanks
Brian Schwatka

[Canton Zouave]

The most common button in my research of period men's shirts has been the china/porcelain button. I have looked at some 20 (or so) shirts over the past couple of years, and the most common button has been china. Of these china buttons, most of the shirts I have looked at, have been the "Piecrust" or "Wagon Wheel" Porcelain button. The common "Inkwell" was also present on several shirts. I even had one shirt with "Dorset" or thread buttons, but this shirt was documented to the 1840's.

A good quick reference to look at shirt styles and button references would be William Brown's "Thoughts on Men's Shirts in America, 1750-1900". The book gets referenced alot here in these pages, and for good reason...it is a good reference.

I will try and post some pics of some various buttons that I have to give you an idea. I also invite anyone else out there to place their button pics here so that we may build a reference for future searches.

[Canton Zouave]

Here are some sample pics.

The buttons shown are:
1. Porcelain Button
2. Porcelain Inkwell button
3. Shell Button (shell type unknown)

These are three different "French Pattern" or Fitted shirts held in the Gettysburg National Military Park Collection. The blue shirt actually has three different types of buttons on the shirt.

I will post some more pics of button and buttons on shirts as I dig them up.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Todd

What kind of material is on the 3rd shirt? I can see a slight pattern on the material, but I cannot really see just what it is due to the resolution.

Brian and all, you may take note of the button placement on the shirt in the 1st photo. This has been consistant with all the 19th century shirts that I have personally seen.

[Bill Cross]

The most common button in my research of period men's shirts has been the china/porcelain button.

According to my friend, Chris Sullivan, white china buttons are also among the more popular for replacing the paper-backed tin ones on issue Federal trousers. These buttons were apparently cheap to make and plentiful, and you can often find whole lots of them on eBay for reasonable prices. The two-hole variety are more commonly used for drawers or flies, but the half inch (or thereabouts) variety are perfect for galluses.

[Peachfuz]

Todd,
I appears that the second shirt is made of an off-white light weight cotton and is machine top-stitched. Is that indeed the case? If so, to whom is the shirt identified?

Thanks,
Rich Taddeo

[2ndNHDOC]

To all who have replied to this post I thank you. I will take your information to heart. (Especially you Bill as I have some trousers that need some new buttons). I am liking this forum more and more for the info and guidance.

Thanks
Brian Schwatka
(New to the progressive experiance mess)

[Canton Zouave]

First off, let me explain the third shirt.
The shirt front is made just like a federal issue shirt placket (or lack there of). Then the embossed cotton is overlaid and stitched with a placket added to the embossed material. Which seemed quite unusual to me at first, and added a double front to the shirt. I may have a better pic of the material that I will post. At first glimpse it seemed like it was a broquade, however close examination under a good light revealed that it was a piece of heavy cotton with the pattern pressed (embossed) into the material. The Museum Catalog Record lists the shirt as being quilted amd embossed, but it is just embossed. To best explain the embossing as I observed, the pattern resembled closely gathered cells.

The second shirt is made out of what I would classify as a medium weight white cotton. It is not as light as hankerchief linen, but more like a 7 oz cotton. The shirt has some staining & details that would lead me to believe that the shirt has turned to the current shade of off-white/yellow. I did have some pics of a nice 1840 vintage shirt made out of fine light linen, but these pics were lost in my own personal great computer crash of 2003. I will try and get some more photos of this wonderful shirt to share in the future as a comparison.

As to construction. All three shirts have high levels of machine sewing to them. The blue one is entirely machine sewn except for the repairs which are shown in another post of mine (see the link), and the button holes. The sewing on it is far from what we would call straight. The other two shirts have all seams machine sewn and machine top stitching, but some flat felling was down by hand and of course the button holes.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1715&highlight=shirts

All of the shirts are held in the Gettysburg NMP collection, and like many things that they have, there is no listed provenience or cultural identity. Of the 5 or 6 shirts I looked at and 6 housewives, only one item was ID'd to a known soldier. Now of course this doesnt mean that they are not period, they just arent thoroughly documented as much as we would like.

Now I am done rambling....and I hope this answer all the questions.

[Jefferson Guards]

From what I understand the cuffs that have the button and buttonhole placed near the sleeve body were "French" style cuffs. The purpose of having the button placed near the sleeve was so that the cuff could be doubled back upon itself. The only other cuff treatment that I know of is the band cuff for use with detachable cuffs. <O:p</O:p

Machine stitching on shirts (and other civilian manufactured men's clothing) is extremely common in this period. In the antebellum period both shirt factories and ready-made clothing factories were producing enormous amounts of clothing for sale throughout the nation. In 1854, the New Haven Shirt Manufactory of New Haven, Connecticut was producing one hundred dozen shirts daily. This factory was just one out of hundreds throughout the nation. In 1858 the New York Chamber of Commerce reported that two thirds of the garments produced in that city were being shipped to the South and the West. To put some figures on that statistic: the same report also notes that there were 32,000 garment workers producing $40,000,000 worth of clothing per year. This production capacity was large enough to allow New York to make the claim that their clothing trade was more than double that of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore combined. These goods were primarily machine sewn.<O:p</O:p
With the nation being flooded with these mass-produced men's clothing items, machine-sewn goods would have been common. With the coming of war these goods would have still been in use, and in the south, this old stock would have still been sold as long as it remained. And also, don't forget the vigorous second hand clothing market, which would have also kept these similar clothing items floating around for people to purchase.

[Vuhginyuh]

I hope the button shows up. It has a decent provenance. Glass or porcelain.

[Canton Zouave]

Yes,

As we all know, the advent of the manufactured shirt is quite common, although we very seldom see the modern pics of these shirts, or so it seems.

Good examples would be the ones that we see from the two commonly referenced steam ship wrecks of the Arabia & Bertrand.

We can also reference shirt #17, on page 95 of William Brown's "Thoughts on Men's Shirts In America 1750-1900". In this, Mr. Brown references the fact that the featured shirts closely resembles the manufactrued shirts found on the Bertrand. The difference being that the Bertrand ones are wool.

As to cuffs, I have not seen reference to them referred to as "French Cuffs", but that doesnt mean much. (Perhaps we could get Hank Trent to chime in about some of the period styling terms) The fact that they extended to the top knuckle of the hand was a matter of evolved styling, so that they could be turned back easily to protect the edge of the coat. Brown references this fact in his work. Of course, the button placement for PEC would be towards the back edge of the cuff nearest the edge of the cuff and closest to the body of the sleeve. Many shirts of a lesser quality that we "might" run across show the common modern style of placing the button centered on the cuff. Even in shirt #17, you will note that the button for the cuff is placed to the back of the cuff, even though the cuff is of a smaller width than previous styling.

Just thumbing through the Brown book you will note how over 150 years cuffs go from narrow bands to 3-4 inch cuffs, and back to the spectrum of narrow. I even once seen referenced, and I dont recall where this was or I would reference it properly, that depending on who made your "On The Square" shirt would show various styles form various eras. Basically, this would be along the lines of whether your young sister made your shirt or your grandma. They would in turn make a shirt that was related to the style and era that they learned to sew in. Now if I could find such well documented shirts that could prove such a theory.


As for the reference to glass vs. porcelain, it seems that in some references these two terms are used to reference the same type of porcelain material.

Note:
Oops rambled again...sorry, and excuse any errors...I lost track of time and now I got to go to work and interact with the modern public...in negative ways.

[Jefferson Guards]

When I had called the cuffs "French" style, I didn't mean to imply that was the period term. That would be what they stylistically resemble today with the cuff folded back upon itself. I went digging into the files and found an advertisement for the Ward Shirt & Collar Manufacturing from the early 1860s that illustrates the styles they were manufacturing. They offered three cuff treatments, one termed "Bands for Shirts with false cuffs", one "English Wristband" (which had a button and buttonhole near the sleeve body and a rectangular shape), and a "Old English Wristband," which also had the button near the sleeve body, although this cuffs openings were rounded rather than square. So, I guess one period term for these cuffs would be either English or Old English depending on the shape of the cuff opening. I am going to try to get a scan made of this advertisement so I can post it.

[Canton Zouave]

Brian,

I know which ad your are speaking of, or at least a similar one from the same company. In William Brown's book, on page 124 & 125 is a sample of an ad from the Ward Shirt & Collar Company. This ad shows the variety of seperate cuffs , plus the banded and english style cuffs. Since I am curious, and if you have the book, cross reference to see if they are the same ad.

The types of cuff that you mentioned would be for a more refined look to the shirt, and for special occasions or even every day wear based on your station in life. The larger cuff seems to be more prevelent in the samples that I have examined, but this doesnt by any means form any solid conclussion that could be made about cuff size. In fact the more styles that we can verify through research of original garments and through photographs will greatly add to the options that we as Living Historians can have for our shirts & other period garments.

The same thing will hold true for the original question on buttons...the more different varieties that we can document as used on a shirt the better in which we can expand upon a impression.

[Jefferson Guards]

Here are some photographs of two original shirts I have viewed. The buttons look to be glass or maybe porcelain. It is interesting that Shirt 1 has a front that is similiar to the embossed shirt front that is housed in the GNMP collection.

[Vuhginyuh]

Any clear or transparent colored button is glass. Glass can also be opaque or it can be translucent (milky). Many stained-glass windows will display glass with many of these features, especially those made in and after the period we are interested in.

Procelain buttons can be translucent, letting some light ''glow'' through but for the most part is an opaque button because it is fired clay. You cannot see through it.

If you crack a button open it could be difficult to tell if it was opaque glass or porcelain

This can be tied to another thread for the clay used to make porcelain is a more refined and hotter fired version of the white kaolin used to make pipes.
Glass would vaporize in a fraction of the heat and time needed to fuse the silicates in clay to produce porcelain.

The loose use off the terms glass and porcelian together is very acceptable, though they are differnent products. After they are sewn to a garment their origin is insignificant as long as thier purpose is effective.

The difference may not mean much to us today but there was a world of difference to those early guildsman who made them. It can be an important archaeologically as well.

I am digging through some files to try to determine the origin, frequency and distribution of these products in the 3rd quarter of 19th century America.

I am thinking glass buttons are just coming into widespread use during the period. If any member has documention to share it would be interesting to see.

[Vuhginyuh]

It appears that all of the buttons in this thread are 4 hole. Does anyone have an example with 2 hole buttons?

These are all glass. The four hole card is backmarked in retangular stamp PARIS 60

[Vuhginyuh]

Here is an abstract from a ca. 1850 house-site in Southern Maryland.

986 BUTTONS FOUND...

After glass buttons, the next most common type was mother-of-pearl/shell, followed by bone, iron, copper, rubber, composite, tin, pewter, ceramic, and brass...eleven of the rubber buttons had the words "Novelty Rubber Company/Goodyear Pat. 1851" on their reverse... many of the buttons had decorations of various types, including glass buttons with homestead scenes, geometric patterns, metallic buttons with gilt lettering, embossing, shell designs, and floral motifs.

[Canton Zouave]

Ok,

Here are some of the samples that I have for some period buttons. These include:
Shell
China "Pie Crusts"
Assorted China
Glass
Bone


I also added a hard rubber button.
These are just a small sampling of various buttons. I hope some of the details show from the pics. If I wanted to go off and start cutting up buttons, which I dont, I woulld have liked to shown a profile of some of these buttons. I have seen, with the exception of one or two, many of these button types on various mid-19th century shirts.

In addition, here is a link...that was once posted on the old forum...that shows various types of calico buttons.
http://home.pon.net/behrbaum/

[Vuhginyuh]

To the casual observer this would be a mundane topic…but this is the true beauty of this site. A simple thing like a little shirt button garners this much attention…but in fact it is the little things that count.

Brian, good question.

[Canton Zouave]

Garrison,

I took the time to re-read the post you did about glass and porcelain.

Some of the buttons that I have had the misfortune to destroy, demonstrated two characteristsic inside. I was just wondering if this would be similar to your reference on the buttons or just a matter of the quality of materials.

These buttons on occassion have shown a very shiny and sharp edge when broken. Other buttons, when broken, have a slight "gritty" or rough feel to the internal structure. Initially, I compared this to the difference when one would compare the broken edge of a piece of glass to that of a broken china dish. I may have errantly applied the analogy to buttons. The couple of true glass buttons that I have ID'd in my collection are actually kind of crude in their manufacture. One of them is in my thunbnails in the last post.

You post on this will aid my future efforts in the ID of buttons. Thank You.

[Vuhginyuh]

Garrison,

I took the time to re-read the post you did about glass and porcelain.

Some of the buttons that I have had the misfortune to destroy, demonstrated two characteristsic inside. I was just wondering if this would be similar to your reference on the buttons or just a matter of the quality of materials.

These buttons on occassion have shown a very shiny and sharp edge when broken. Other buttons, when broken, have a slight "gritty" or rough feel to the internal structure. Initially, I compared this to the difference when one would compare the broken edge of a piece of glass to that of a broken china dish. I may have errantly applied the analogy to buttons. The couple of true glass buttons that I have ID'd in my collection are actually kind of crude in their manufacture. One of them is in my thunbnails in the last post.

You post on this will aid my future efforts in the ID of buttons. Thank You.

You are correct, the gritty feel is the ceramic ''fabric''. A very fine porcelain button will have a more glass-like cross section becaue the silicates are much finer that a stoneware ceramic. Porcelian is initially fired at a much higher temperature than any other ceramic of the era. It is also fired for a longer period of time with a longer cooling period. The fine clay with a high, long firing gives porcelaine its glass-like qualities.

However, if broken, any ceramic will display a flat or matt look to the cross-section compared to smooth, sharp, shiny glass you also mentioned.

Decorated buttons were glazed or painted after the initial firing and then fired again, as per the characteristics of the decoration, to set them. Any metal or organic material was added after all of the heating was over.

Calling glass porcelain is quite acceptable in my opinion. I cannot tell the difference in some whole artifacts.

As to the quality of the glass, I think some of the glass buttons are early pressed examples, if not all of them. I would imagine they were inexpensive.

[Canton Zouave]

The Devil is in the details...besides this is fun to do. The main reason I do this is looking and researching and finding the minute details. Somthing as simple as a button, or the addition of finish nails to housewives, or the minutest details of of buttonholes is what makes this all worth while for me.

Never mind that fact that the more we through out there, especially in research and photos, the more information we will have out our fingertips.

[SparksBird]

Going back to the original question that was posted, I will have to chime in with one thing. Of all of the original shirts that we have in our museum collection and that I have looked at, I am yet to see a wooden button on one. It actually makes me wonder how common they actually were. Even common work shirts have mother of pearl or china buttons on them. So, with all of the choices of buttons that Todd has listed, how would wood fit in?

Rick Musselman
Buckeye Mess
GHTI

[Vuhginyuh]

Rick,

This pertains to small shirt cuff or placket buttons only...

The only wood buttons I have seen from the field were from burial excavations and from shrouds. They were the single material artifact from the interior of the burials. These buttons survived because they were in contact with the copper tacks used to mark the coffin. When the burials collapsed the tacks fell across the sternum of the remains. The acidic qualities of the copper corrosion actually preserved the wood it was in contact with. (We found more single bone buttons than any type closure, with heavy copper straight-pins being the second most common and wood being the smallest sample.)

Three wood buttons were discovered in a surface survey of Oakdale Cemetery's (Wilmington NC) yellow fever plots, '63-'64. The wood type of the buttons is unknown and are not associated with the above mentioned burials and re-interments. It was surprising to find these wood artifacts at the surface.

Because of the nature of such organic items we do not have evidence of widespread use of wood. We do not deal with intact textiles and garments as museum collections/collectors do.

So, in short, I do not know the frequency of small wood buttons on wearable garments of the period in question.

[Jefferson Guards]

I finally found a Sanitary Commission Bulletin from May 1864 that contains a pattern for drawers and they call for black bone buttons. There is also a shirt pattern associated with this bulletin, but it was not included in the CMH article so I cannot comment on whether they call for bone buttons on the shirt as well. Does anyone have this May 1864 bulletin and what kind of buttons are called for on the shirt?

[Canton Zouave]

To add to what Rick had to say;

I haven't seen any shirt with wood buttons, and when I posted some pics of the buttons that I do have...I did not add any wood buttons because I dont have a single period wood button. Any shirt sized reproduction wood buttons that I have are not period documented. They merely set in the bottom of my tool box waiting for some use in the future.

Perhaps we should examine a Hypothesis on how a 5/16 or 3/8 inch sized button would be made in the various mediums. This may give us an idea of why we dont see shirt sized wooden buttons. Which would have been easier and cheaper to make? Anyone that may have such information feel free to post it here. The ease of construction or lack there of, may be the issue, but this is purely conjecture at this time.

One thing that is noted about shirts of the period is that the manufacture of the shirt was cheaper, than the cloth itself. This is best demonstrated in the period pattern guides that show us how to get the most amount of shirts out a section of fabric. Evidence of this is the fact that you will see shirts that will have one sleeve made from one piece of fabric and another sleeve made out of two or three pieces. The cost of fabric necessitated the frugal use of it through the construction of the shirt. Browns briefly discussed this in his work as well.

Now, with that said, depending on further study, we may find that the types of buttons used will also be relevant to the overall cost of such items.

Just the beginning of an educated thought...and and I never thought this flat foot would ever have an educated thought. :D

[Vuhginyuh]

I checked with some more of our respected vendors and they agree that wood was rare. Actually,none of them had ever seen wood buttons on a period shirt.

Here is shot of another 19th century card. All glass or ceramic (Porcelain).

[Canton Zouave]

Garrison,

Excellent shot for the button card. Such a sample aids in eliminating any questions about button types for the period.

Thanks,

[Vuhginyuh]

I checked with some more of our respected vendors and they agree that wood was rare. Actually,none of them had ever seen wood buttons on a period shirt.

Here is shot of another 19th century card. All glass or ceramic (Porcelain).

Here are some loose translations for the card. From my Down-East North Carolina French…

Patent…
Lentille… lens
Blanes…
Rouge Plein …
Noirs… black
Biseau… bevel
Perles… bead
Cuvette… basin
Bourrelets… pads
2 trous … 2 hole
Minerals… mineral, to mimic stone I guess...
Band de Coul …
Imprimes… print
Fil Coul… wire (?)

The 2 hole, numbers 14, 16, 18 ,20, 22, 24, 26, 28 are; well, channel or deep channel buttons.