Buttoning Up - Buttoning Down
What keeps your interest in the button hobby ? • Button mosaic pictures • Charm strings charm • Letters tell of button rides • Fairview button picture • Nobody knows who invented buttons • Buttoning down • Anyone collect bed pans?
For some time Lilburn had been riding his Genealogical and History Hobby Horses. His correspondence frequently reported on the interesting rides he was taking. But, while he never permanently turned these hobby-horses out to pasture, in the Fall of 1944 he found a challenging new one to gallop off on. It was characteristic of the man that, as a bystander, observing respected people enjoying an avocation, he frequently yielded to the temptation to explore its pleasures himself.
Part of what follows is taken from an undated Lilburn manuscript which must have been the basis of a talk given to the Missouri State Button Society at its annual meeting. Later, this presentation, somewhat condensed, was published in the Bulletin of the National Button Society under the title, A MISSOURI COLLECTOR SPEAKS.
About four years ago I went by Madge Walker’s place to see her collection of old glass and found she had become more interested in antique buttons. I am in deep sympathy with all collectors regardless of what they collect, be it coffee grinders, baby shoes, mid-Victorian bustles or mustache cups.
Having run after something all my life, the objects they seek do not always rouse my interest to a boil. To me, buttons were something that popped off at inopportune times or confronted me with embarrassment when I failed to fasten them.
Occasionally I was exposed to cases of button fever, but I remained immune until last fall. Infection then set in, mildly at first, after a traveling saleswoman collector, with button temperature high, came into my office with a card of old buttons and showed me their good points. The result was as if she had loaned me glasses to improve my vision. And Madge Walker, still battling for buttons like a seasoned evangelist, kept calling on me to be converted to buttons, to join the National Button Society Band and to collect some buttons while the field was white unto the harvest. My button infection spread and soon I found myself a victim of a creeping activity which progressed until it is all over me now, and I have little hope or desire for a cure! So, in the spirit of adventurous conquest, yet with some trepidation, I set forth to inspect the button boxes of the county.
The faces of the sweet ladies who came to their doors to greet me registered surprise, sometimes shock, when I asked them to open up their sewing machine drawers and their button boxes for inspection. For those who do not know of my family name, it is one which has been around here since Howard County, the Mother of Missouri Counties, the heart of the Boonslick Country, was settled in 1816. More than one lady thought aloud, “Well! This is the first time I ever heard of a man hunting buttons!...”
Always they declared they had nothing at all. Too often they were right. More often they watched me lay aside their more desirable items, enthused by surprise and pleasure that the old box contained anything anyone might want. There was a running revelation of stories connected with the persons who had worn the buttons. Only a few white people were sentimental enough about buttons that they wished to retain them. They gave them away, or sold them for a nominal sum.
Old Negro women — not many of them are left — who have saved things given them by their “white folks,” sometimes had beautiful buttons. As a rule they declared they were “glad to be shet of them.” Occasionally one would say she did not wish “to depart from ‘em,” or “to git exposed of ‘em.” A little financial finesse was in order.
The urge to buy all of the button books and to subscribe for the magazines and state bulletins has been strong and effective. They are all interesting and helpful.
The number and variety of buttons described and pictured in these publications can be overwhelming to a beginner. However, he soon learns that many specimens are to be found in this area. The prospect of discovering rarities is good enough to keep this button hound’s nose to the ground all the time — there being no closed season on button game.
I have found coveys of calicoes, stencils, ringers, large and small picture buttons, lithographs, militaries, gilts, handsome lustre — both picture and conventional types — pearls and enamels. Then there have been charm strings made up entirely of small glass buttons — all shapes and colors. Others with paperweights, kaleidoscopes, jewels, puddings, glories have afforded me great pleasure. A Red Riding Hood is the best picture button I have discovered to date.
The possession, arrangement and display of buttons is a lot of fun but friends to whom I tell my button stories raise the question as to whether the people I meet are not more interesting to me than the buttons I acquire.
I well remember when Miss Katie West came hustling into the room with several boxes and in handing one to me, dropped it, spilling the contents all over the floor. She was a stout woman but got down on her hands and knees to pick up the buttons. Being a gentleman, I could do no less. As we worked, conversation a bit breathless at times, shot back and forth. I had never seen Miss Katie until that day but after we had picked up all the buttons and sat down to inspect them, I was impelled to tell her I felt like I had known her all my life! Over buttons, one feels as free and easy as over a cup of tea.
One afternoon just as I stepped up on the porch of the little cottage of Misses Amy and Jennie Bird, lusty feminine voices within were raised in the hymn, “Just As I Need Him Most”. My first thought was this was a good omen. Then something told me the Aid Society was in session and I had indeed chosen an inopportune time for my button call. But in these days of gasoline and tire rationing, one can’t be daunted by anything else. In response to my knock, and my whispered inquiry about buttons for sale, Miss Jennie said they had none. But Miss Amy appeared at that moment and replied, “Yes! Come right in.”
She invited me to be seated in the circle of ladies whose mouths were wide open, singing. Miss Amy whispered she would bring her charm string in. I knew the meeting, which proved to be the Bible Study Class, was no place to haggle for buttons, so I followed Miss Amy into the other room, closed the door and proposed that we hold our tryst in there alone. She consented willingly and produced her charm string. She could not sell it to me, she said, because she had promised it to her dear niece. But she would sell me twelve buttons of my choice. We dickered over the dozen until she stated a price per button and said if I would pay that much I might have twenty-five. But not another one! She wanted only enough to buy herself a dress and a pair of shoes.
She asked me to remain until after the class was over. It was a pleasure to visit as her four-score-years had been full of rich experiences which she related well. In leaving I expressed regret at having deprived her of attendance at her Bible Class. I shall long remember with a smile the twinkle in her eye and her reply in a soft voice confiding tone, “You were a Godsend for I was to lead the class today and I got out of it.”
Another day Miss Amy took me to see a charm string which she said “was a rival of mine when I was a girl.” The old lady who had this charm string of about five hundred buttons also refused to sell it intact but said I might choose buttons I desired and cut them off until she thought I had enough and stopped me. I got one hundred that day. I have been back for a hundred more. She has not stopped me yet. The remnants of both of these strings will eventually find their way into my collection.
Later, in other homes in this little town, when I inquired about buttons several ladies told me of the two strings I had already discovered and devastated, but in each case I was assured, “They’ll let you look at them but you can’t get them for love nor money.” The old charm string ladies hold well their secret in this little village where everyone usually knows everybody else’s business to such an extent that when I was in one home a phone call was relayed to me. “Tell the Button Man to come up to Miller’s.” Besides myself, there are five or six button collectors in this county.
One of these collectors, after a period of sixty years has resumed collecting and adding to her forty-years-old charm string. She would not price it to me. I did not encourage her to do so after she told me she had read that an old lady had nothing to fear in old age if she possessed a charm string and a silk crazy quilt as they would bring enough to take care of her the rest of her life.
My chief trouble in button collecting is one of balance. The lure of buttons, the excitement of discovery and acquisition, plus the delight of homey visiting with folks over their button boxes have proven so attractive that I find myself wearying unduly of office, farm and orchard duties in order to indulge in the sport of collecting buttons. Was ever recreation more strenuous and yet more relaxing?
What Keeps Your Interest in The Button Hobby?
Another undated manuscript was apparently written for a talk given in Kansas City at a Convention of the National Button Association. The following excerpts from it provide additional insights into his button hobby horse riding:
“What,” you ask me, “keeps up your interest in the button hobby when you spend only a limited time on it, don’t get to many shows, and are sort of off to yourself?”
My time for the hobby has always been limited because of an insurance business which requires a watchful eye; musical activity in which a record of 48 years of continuous service as organist at my church is involved; the maintenance of a fruit farm, a project begun by my father in 1872 and continued for the sake of tradition and financial reward; and minor avocations. So, life for me is like a tossed salad of interest with the button hobby for a savory dressing.
Geographically, I am “sort of set off by myself,” but distances between kindred spirits can be lessened with a typewriter or annihilated with a tankful of gas, so occasionally I do it.
What keeps up my interest? The same phases which involved me in the beginning. They are as numerous and pleasant as harmonious tonal combinations on a Hammond organ. Among them are: love of beauty, appreciation of the artistic, a dash of curiosity, the lure of the hunt, delight of acquisition, keen competition and the communion of kindred spirits. All these are deeply rooted in rich, fertilizing experiences which make fruitful my present lush interest in the hobby.
I was curious to know if people in my part of the country had ever worn beautiful buttons and if so, were any such still extant. Investigation proved they had...and that there were. Back in the 1870s and ’80s most young ladies made charm strings inspired by visions of romance. For some the charm worked. Others were not spared from chronic spinsterhood. Some of the latter, still living, I had known all my life. But never by word or deed had they given me cause to suspect they had been involved with charm strings and button boxes in their gay young courting days.
My interest in button collecting always bubbles up when I recall some of the obstacles I had to overcome to acquire certain highly prized buttons. A treasured example is the one Salome showed me, a beautiful carved pearl button displaying a wo-man’s head, a moment of her ermine cape. She said it had been photographed by the author of a book on classic buttons for a forthcoming publication. This added distinction to its charm and I coveted it openly. I explained how I needed the button to crown as queen of my collection. Salome said others felt the same way and she, herself, meant to keep her enthroned forever. But little drops of persuasion wore down her rocky resistance. For once a woman changed her mind! I offered her “unto half of my kingdom,” and she handed me the head on a tray.
It was an eventful day when I stalked down my first charm string. Strung together were more than a hundred little glass buttons — the first of them I had ever seen — bits of beauty reflecting color and light. Thinking this might be an opportunity which might never knock again, I opened my billfold and without a cheapening word, laid down the amount she said a national dealer had offered her. (I am still interested in seeing that dealer to ask, “Did you?” Another charm string turned up the very next day.)
As with all novices, every button that came to my notice and into my possession was of paramount interest. I have cherished them carefully which accounts for thousands which now take up space. But I recall no keener delight than that afforded by those early and often simple acquisitions. Those little treasures of the first years seem like humble steps up which we climbed to higher levels of discernment. They are as much out of the general picture now as our early school primers. We may not appreciate their charm but it is not lost any more than the morals to the simple stories we first learned to read.
Bombarding me periodically from Paris and London are buttons from my scouts there. Even their written reports of their hunting compounds my interest. How I should like to go back and do some scouting on my own.
From the time Lilburn became excited by Madge Walker’s button collection in 1944 his letters to relatives and friends frequently reported on rides he took on this hobby horse. Some excerpts follow from a March 1945 letter:
Button Mosaic Pictures
Lillian and I picked up Floye (wife of a Marine aviator nephew) and took her with us to Columbia. Some time ago in the Minnesota Bulletin for button collectors there was an interesting illustration of a picture, Star of the East, made of buttons by one Mr. Engler who had just moved from Minnesota to Columbia, Mo. I wrote to the gentleman in Columbia and asked him to stop by and see me. I took him to dinner at the Frederick Hotel and we had a fine visit. I liked him very much. We had much in common besides buttons, but he had much more than I have, a wife and five children, ages 18 down to seven, twins among them. He invited me to Columbia to see his button mosaics. We did that yesterday.
I don’t suppose anyone has ever made button mosaics before. Engler says so far as he knows, his work is unique. Hung in three of the rooms of the large home he occupies on West Broadway are fourteen large pictures. Among them are The Minute Men, The Pilgrims Going to Church, Hiawatha, Rock of Ages, and The Church in the Wildwood.
We found that to see the pictures, one must have distance to enhance, just as with oil paintings. At a proper distance, they were wonderful. The Pilgrims Going to Church is very large and the characters in it must be fifteen inches high. It is made of 60,000 buttons. One picture is of a caravan on the Santa Fe Trail and it is eight feet long and about four feet high. Engler mounts them on taut velvet or other cloth, then stretches them on wall board before putting them in heavy gold frames. Some work! He is going to transform a brick poultry house on the premises for his pictures, with each lighted to the best advantage. In the past two years before he came to Columbia — despite the rationing of gas and tires — 1500 people called to see the pictures. I would charge admission, but he says he has no intention of doing such.
Charm Strings Charm
Charm strings fascinated Lilburn and when he heard of one, he would mount his button hobby horse and gallop off in pursuit. His diligence and persuasive personality enabled him to acquire more than twenty such and to learn much about the fad taken up by the young women of the era. He shares some of the experiences of his hobby rides in excerpts from an article he wrote for the American Antique Journal:
Back in the 1870s and ’80s the busiest button collectors may well have been the young women who made charm strings which button collectors seek so avidly today.
These charm strings were made primarily of buttons but the young ladies generally strung upon them a few amulets, steeped in sentiment. Some tokens were from the boys who made their hearts beat faster; others were precious because of childhood or school days associations. Among the most popular charms were dimes, gold dollars, tiny baskets whittled from pecan, hazelnut and almond shells or peach pits, little sea shells, tiny doll arms and legs, miniature merrythoughts, dolls, jugs, keys, horseshoes and religious medals.
Some of the older ladies who still have their charm strings were little girls when they began to collect buttons. They tell us they did it because it was a popular fad of the day, and there was no romantic tradition connected with the hobby. On the other hand, one lady admitted that she added buttons to her string as fast as she could. She believed as soon as it became as long as she was tall, she would get married. Others say they reveled in the tradition that as soon as the 999th button was added to the string, Prince Charming would come riding up the road on a prancing steed, with the 1000th button on his “weskit” and a wedding ring in his pocket — both for her. Wedding bells would ring and life would be happy ever after.
The young girls contrived a sly game to get more buttons for their charm strings. Each secretly selected one on her string as the “touch button.” Usually it was the most conspicuous one. As soon as the visitor in her home had enjoyed the stereopticon views and the family pictures in the plush-backed album, the charm string was produced for his delectation. As the guest fingered it, he would be startled by a sharp exclamation of seeming surprise from the young hostess, “Oh dear! You have touched the charm button. Now you will have to give me a button for my string.” It was a game which must have paid off well.
It was quite usual for young men to purchase buttons at the dry goods emporiums to bestow upon these fair collectors. Certainly there was no gesture then which would ingratiate them more, or establish their reputations as charming gentlemen. When women and girls had dresses made and got buttons, they bought a few extra ones to give to their charm string friends. The code precluded young women from buying buttons for their own charm strings. They must be acquired from others through grace. Each string was regarded as evidence of its owner’s charm. It is easy to understand why it was suspected some young ladies “fudged” a little to bolster their prestige.
Letters Tell of Button Rides
I wonder why I collect buttons!
Buttons. We all use them. Modern civilized man is a slave to them for he has to handle two dozen or more of them every time he dresses and undresses himself. They are the mainstay of man’s raiment. They are its sole adornment. They are a part of man’s burden and our wives, no matter how they may fasten their own garments, will have to help men bear this burden, or at least until the old idea of wifely duty is abandoned.
There are (or were before the War) at least 50 million men in the U.S. who are slaves to buttons and it is safe to say that in their dressing and undressing operations, at least 20 buttons are handled by or for each one on the average. That makes one billion buttons which at least twice a day have to be dealt with. Aside from these, there are buttons on all reserve garments, many of them purely ornamental. Then there are the well-stocked button boxes and bags maintained by all good housewives. The number of buttons in existence is stupendous. I have thousands. The other day I acquired a so-called “charm string” of buttons 17 feet long from an old gentleman who claimed it contained 700 items. There were not more than 50 in the lot which were like those I had already. The number of types and styles and designs of buttons is as broad as the fancy of the artists who have designed them.
If we admit that button collecting may seem unimportant to some, I am reminded of Gilbert White, the naturalist who was something of a philosopher as well. He claimed to have discovered a formula for complete happiness. It was short and simple and I give it to you for what it is worth: “Keep interested in the unimportant.” Perhaps he means for us to see that nothing is completely unimportant. Happiness lies in the discovery of the relative importance of seemingly unimportant things.
Charles Walker has sent me a button which one of his lady friends let him have to show me. She wants to know its worth and how she can go about selling three of them to best advantage. They appear to be tortoise shell with a dragon or wild horse in gold with silver wings. It is a right smart button and I have offered $5 for one or $13.50 for three. Somebody who did not know any better sent me a set of six large buttons which have on them Lohengrin saying farewell to Elsa. Two or three years ago they were worth $1.75 each. They were on the trousseau of the young woman married in the Burkhartt parlor in 1881 and I shall display them as such when I talk to the Revolutionary Girls (DARS) on May 1st.
May 1945
At Concordia where I recently stopped for gas after a day on the hunt, I was so tired I went into the station and talked to an elderly man as I rested enjoying a coke. There was a showcase full of dogs — china, plaster and whatnot. On it was a label, “MY HOBBY.”
I asked the man if they were his and he replied “Yes,” that he was a dog lover, a dog trainer; that is, he used to train them to be housebroken. He got a few of these little figures and people have sent him others from all over the world. He said he had more than 200. After he had expatiated long on his dogs, I told him I had many hobbies but now I was collecting old buttons. He looked at me quizzically and rather incredulously over his glasses and said, “Well, that shore is a strange hobby. I never heard of anything like that.”
And then, in a very casual tone, he continued, “Years ago, my hobby was taking pictures of women with long hair before a full length mirror. I reckon I had about 1900 before hair bobbin’ come in style. It was afore my wife died. ...whenever I seen a woman with a lot of hair on her head, I could hardly wait to meet her to ask her to let me take a picture of her and my wife would ask her to come to dinner and after we ate I would tell her what I wanted. Didn’t but one ever refuse ... she said hasn’t no man but her husband ever seen her with her hair down ... and I said of course that was all right if that was the way she felt about it. I reckon if hair bobbin’ hadn’t come in I’d had a hundred thousand pictures by now. Once there was a woman had the biggest head of hair and I asked her to let me photograph her before the full length mirror. Her skirt came to her shoe tops, and when she took out the hair pins and let her hair fall down, it fell clean to the hem of the skirt, and with her back turned she was completely hid by her hair. I never seen anything like it. ...”
November 1945
A couple of days ago, when the strain of disposing of my apples was easing, I remembered buttons and asked two old ladies who were buying apples if they had any. They went home and told a neighbor who came down with a charm string, wanting to trade it for apples. So for buttons, I just about gave her the pick of the crop. Anyway, we were both satisfied.
Another old lady buyer looked like she might never have had a button, or I thought knew what a good one looked like. It seemed a waste of time to ask her about buttons, but I did. She didn’t have any herself, but she told me her friend across the river in the Glasgow bottoms, near old Cambridge, had a charm string. So I was soon off to Glasgow bottoms and old Cambridge. It was once a thriving city on the Missouri river. Now only a few houses are still standing. I found Mrs. John Wilkes, the lady who told me about her neighbor’s charm string. She had learned the charm string had been sold. My disappointment was eased somewhat when she told me she had discovered she had some buttons. There were only a few but one was very interesting. It had been picked up around her place after plowing or after rains had washed the land. Her little girl used to say after a hard rain, “Mummy, let’s go hunt treasures.” She had picked up many old coins and a couple of very interesting Catholic medals, one dated 1830. She graciously gave me all her buttons.
I heard that Miss Emma Volrath of Sedalia, aged 83, born and reared in Boonville, had a charm string. That afternoon, when I could resist temptation no longer, I called her to learn she would sell it. I found her an interesting person who had lovely old things from the old Volrath place in Boonville, built in 1845 and still standing. She laid the button string before me and told me the offer made her by a dealer. But she would let me have it at that price. I ended my visit by bringing it home with me and mounting it that night. They are “jewels.” You would be surprised to see what unusual buttons I have mounted and what an attractive display they make.
I had to scheme a little and exercise patience with Rose Middein, an old Negro woman. When I approached her about her charm string she shook her head vigorously and proclaimed that she would never depart from the charm string that “ole Missy done gib me.” This particular charm string was discarded and given to Rose by a daughter of one of our pioneer families. It contained an array of buttons from waistcoats and dresses of many men and women of prominence in the county. It was long and elegant. It contained jewels, beads in various materials and sizes, many small and medium picture buttons of people, fruit, birds and flowers, a few militaries and gilts, lithographs of many types and hues, paperweights, glories, reflectors, dewdrops, kaleidoscopes, birds’ eggs and pudding molds. Such a diversity on one string I had never seen before. It was enough to make one heedless of covetous sin.
Rose’s health was failing. Hoping to ingratiate myself in a manner to influence her to sell me the charm string, I asked her what I might bring her that she craved most? “Boss,” she replied, “Hamhock an’ salt fish is the mostest cravin’ I got.”
It was some time before a hamhock was available on the farm, but eventually I set out to bait my trap, the hamhock in one hand and the salt fish in the other. Gaily, I went up the flower-bordered walk to the cabin and knocked briskly on Rose’s door. A strange, sober face looked out from the crack of the slightly opened door. “Where’s Rose?” I asked. “I’ve come with her hamhock and fish.”
Ohh Boss,” the stranger said in a hushed voice as tears came into her eyes. “Rose, she’s sleepin’ in the parlor. She done died last night.”
But old Rose could not have received my gift more gratefully than the surviving members of her family. After all, it worked like bread cast upon the waters. After a respectful period of waiting I returned and bought the charm string from Rose’s husband who had warded off other collectors and saved it for me.
Sunday, Xena came down from Huntsville with two couples who wanted to see my house. After they had gotten an eyeful, I took them to my office to see my button collection. I proudly showed my fruit buttons, especially the one with the man picking apples, the one showing a lady eating an apple, and another supposed to be Fannie Davenport reaching up for an apple.
After they returned to Huntsville, one of the women who had some buttons herself, sent me a couple of small items. They are apples, green with stem end and the blush on the side. I knew there were such but I had never found any and was especially delighted. I now have buttons with cherries, strawberries, blackberries, pears, peaches, corn, wheat, barley and of course many kinds of flowers to represent the products of my farm, orchard and garden.
Fairview Button Picture
Shortly afterward Lilburn decided to create a button picture of his farm. He tells about this in a family letter of September 1956. I first saw the picture when I visited him in the summer of 1958. I was taken by the creativity of his picture and the color provided by his beautiful buttons. Even though he disposed of virtually all of his buttons in the seventies, his “Farm Project” hung in a place of honor until his death. The letter excerpt follows:
I must tell you about my new “Farm Project.” It consists of a water color sketch of the farm, showing house, barns, fields, orchard and ponds — even the cemetery. I had never before touched a brush but thought I would try it. I spent about $15 for water color books, brushes, papers and paints and set about making my picture. The colors are maybe a little harsh in spots, but it was not intended to be anything but amateurish. In the orchard I mounted little buttons depicting apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, etc.
Button picture shows everything pertaining to a farm
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I have an elegant rose garden made of enamel floral buttons and little rose paperweight buttons. There is a poultry yard with buttons depicting chickens. I have birds in trees. In the pasture are hogs, horses, a bull (and I have been promised a cow), a goat and so on. A large part of the farm is given to the flower growth, as there are so many beautiful little flower buttons of many varieties. Then I have a grape arbor with many lovely grape buttons, also a strawberry bed. Strange to say, I couldn’t have a vegetable garden for I do not find vegetables other than corn depicted on old buttons. In the fields of grain, I have wheat, corn, oats and other varieties of grasses. To one side is the blackberry patch. Around the ponds are cattails, water lilies, snakes, frogs, water birds, a turtle and a boat. A dog is chasing a fox, a peacock struts in the front yard near a rabbit. There is a button (in the orchard) of a man gathering apples. I believe the idea is original and I think it will be taken up by others — maybe not the “farm idea” — but something else.
Nobody Knows Who Invented Buttons
Some of Lilburn’s hobby horse rides bring to mind my childhood thrill of going to the Circus and breathlessly watching a daring bareback rider of two horses. He galloped them around the ring standing with legs spread, one foot on each horse, carefully manipulating the horses’ reins as he galloped along to wild spectator applause. Most of Lilburn’s hobby-horse riding was not that demanding physically — but it challenged him.
A compelling hobby of his, as noted earlier, was history. He had great curiosity. He wished to know why things were like they are and how they got that way. Knowing my Uncle’s propensity for this, I was not surprised to find an undated manuscript (probably written in 1962) devoted to button history. From the following excerpts I concluded he based talks he delighted in, given to women’s clubs upon this manuscript.
Buttons have been hoarded and collected in America since colonial days. The many surviving old button boxes and charm strings are proof this collecting activity is far from new.
Nobody knows who invented the button. The Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks and Romans were among those who wore loose, flowing robes secured by clasps, buckles, sashes and similar devices. Egyptian excavations have revealed button-like objects, but they are not believed to have been used to fasten garments. They might have been used as seals, or badges of office or rank, or simply for decoration.
It is reasonable to assume buttons were used chiefly for decorative purposes until more tailored styles of clothing required an improved method of closure. Then some genius mothered the invention of the buttonhole. While buttons since then have served chiefly in a utilitarian capacity, they have never lost their decorative appeal nor their use in a military capacity. The earliest buttons of importance were custom-made for the nobility, the landed gentry, and of course, royalty. They were so expensive only people of great wealth could afford them. They were of gold and silver, set with precious stones, miniatures and carvings of ivory.
During the reign of button-conscious Louis XIV, the cost of the royal buttons alone became a drain upon the French treasury. Gold buttons set with the rarest emeralds, diamonds, rubies and other precious gems characterized the extravagance of this monarch. Louis XV was more conservative and content with engraved gold buttons. Next came Louis XVI who expanded the reckless extravagance of his grandfather. He ordered buttons of outlandish size and shape, set with stones of fabulous price. Aside from his satisfaction in strutting peacock-like, he entertained the idea that if he ever had to flee the country, he could don this lavishly decorated coat and wear his fortune across the border.
The earliest button collectors were men because nearly two-thirds of the buttons made before 1820 were made for that once proud peacock, the male of the species. It was a means of combining utility with value on one’s own person.
Every art, industry and calling, every trade, profession and pursuit is reflected in buttons. To prove this we might start with the diamond cutter as top man and go downward, or we might begin with the worker in pewter as low man and climb up the scale.
Let’s start at the top and go down: painter, sculptor, miniaturist, goldsmith, gem cutter, silversmith, jeweler, watchmaker, tinsmith, whitesmith, armorer, gunsmith, mirror maker, engraver, glassmaker, brazier, cameo-cutter, potter, feather merchant, hair worker, ebonist, lacemaker, tapestry and textile weavers, embroiderer, ivory carver, worker in pewter, and wood turner. All these have contributed to the art of button making. Every substance known in the arts and trades is found in buttons.
Buttons reflect every invention, every pursuit, social and otherwise, every animal, bird, fish and insect known to the makers, and some not known to this day. The frills and foibles and modes of every age are reflected in its buttons. If you collect the relics of aviation, transportation by land or sea, fire fighting, or what have you, you have buttons that mirror that interest.
Perhaps no type of button creates broader interest than picture buttons. They are made in all materials, but predominately of the metals. The pictures on these buttons carry us right into the fields of literature, opera, drama, sport, transportation and industry. Some bring to our minds the fables and fairy tales of our youth. Many suggest the accomplishments of men and women. To name a few: Lord Byron, De Soto, Balboa, King Arthur, Alexander the Great, Lafayette, Sir Walter Scott, Stanley and Livingstone and Emperor Charles the Fifth. We have Queen Elizabeth and Jenny Lind. If one acquires one of those buttons, he may feel impelled to visit the encyclopedia to refresh his memory. The button hobby is also educational.
One of the oldest manufacturers in the United States is the Scoville Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Conn. Its buttons have been associated with the development of our country, politically and industrially for the last 150 years. During the War of 1812, Scoville received a contract to manufacture uniform buttons for the Army and Navy. He knew he could make the buttons but the problem was the Army had insufficient cloth to produce the uniforms. Scoville heard John Jacob Astor owned a large herd of sheep in Manhattan and journeyed down from Waterbury to see if they were ready for shearing. The wool was bought, sent to Waterbury where the company set up and financed a textile mill. From then until 1920 Scoville Wool made various types of military buttons and many different types of uniforms for the American forces.
Among the most famous were some presented to General Lafayette, when he visited America in 1825. Only seventeen were made — as many as could be wrought from a solid gold nugget which had been unearthed in North Carolina. These buttons featured the head of George Washington.
I have long known Texas claims to have everything. I refreshed my memory through buttons that it once had a Navy. It had four ships: Invincible, Brutus, Independence and Liberty. These ships darted about the Gulf of Mexico during the Texas Revolution, preventing the landing of vessels carrying supplies to the Mexican armies. This Navy made a definite contribution to Texas’ victory over Mexico. It continued to operate as a fleet until 1843. When Texas was annexed to the United States in 1846, her gallant Navy became United States property. Scoville turned out sets of closures for the Texas Navy in 1937. The buttons carried on the face a lone star, an anchor, and the inscription, Republic of Texas.
Scoville also made buttons in 1840 to further the campaign of William Henry Harrison, running for President that year. There were three distinct types made for that campaign, but all pictured a log cabin. Those early campaign buttons were quite different from the campaign buttons of today. They actually served as buttons, and a staunch political supporter would remove the ordinary buttons from his clothing and attach the buttons of his favorite candidate. No well-dressed campaigner would be without these buttons and they were a common sight during election periods of the time.
Benjamin Franklin was our first Postmaster General who helped design the button still used by the United States Post Office Department today. The Continental Congress appointed Franklin Postmaster General in 1777. Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter of instructions to the postmasters in all the colonies. The letter was illustrated with a wood cut showing a post rider on horseback. In the 1860s and ’70s this original of Franklin was used to prepare dyes for Post Office Department buttons.
General Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” twelfth President of the United States, spent 40 years of his life in the Army. He was a national hero having won several battles in the War with Mexico. Scoville made campaign buttons for Taylor’s campaign in 1848 bearing his image and the inscription, Rough and Ready.
In 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah, a golden spike was driven into the last tie linking the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific into a transcontinental railroad. Scoville was commissioned to strike off commemorative buttons for this occasion.
Two or three years ago I enlisted the aid of a distant relative in London. She was a retired government employee, eager for something to keep busy with. When I proposed she search the off-the-beaten-path shops of London, she wrote she knew nothing at all about buttons. I sent her illustrated literature on the subject and she studied some at the libraries before setting out for conquest. Now when she finds an item she believes worthy of it, she consults records and sends its history along with the button. When visiting relatives in Scotland and Ireland, she investigates all the button boxes available. These relatives have been quite intrigued and excited about the button hunt. They have been most helpful in making the shops of Dublin and Edinburgh accessible to her. Consequently she has sent me many buttons I would never have found here. She sends the “button transfusion” several times each year, which keeps my button count high
She recently sent me a half dozen from Dublin, dated 1821 which were struck off in honor of the visit of George IV to Ireland. He had just acceded to the English throne. It was the first time a king had paid a visit to Ireland in ages. I found out, however, George IV was such a dissolute king the people must have been sorry to have wasted money on this commemorative button.
My button hunting hobby may have seemed strange to others, as indeed at times it has to me. But it has brought me many new interesting friends and furnished me much entertainment. It has added zest, and someone has said, “Zest is the most universal and distinctive mark of a happy man.”
Buttoning Down
For twenty years Lilburn had ridden his button hobby horse hard. His rides had taken him to faraway places in England, France and Italy. He became acquainted with collectors from all parts of the nation. Buying, selling and trading buttons had become a fascinating and profitable — though time-consuming — pastime. Hundreds of thousands of buttons passed through his hands. As his button savvy grew, examples of the rarest and most valuable buttons went onto his display boards. In 1964 — the year of his 80th birthday — his hobby-horse rides began to slow from a gallop to, first a trot, then a walk. In 1978 he put this hobby horse out to pasture. The following excerpts provide insight into his “buttoning down” process:
My oldest and best button friend, Bess Wilson, died of a heart attack at her home in Rockford, Ill., a week ago and my button life has had a big sag ever since. She answered all my questions as to identity and value, as well as keeping me posted about affairs over the country as she was in touch with all the big shots in the hobby.
The State Button Society met the last weekend of April in Sedalia. The President was unable to be there, so as Vice President, I had to take over. My biggest job was to hold a memorial service for Bob Johnson, the banker button collector from Kansas City. He also had just died in his sleep. It turned out to be a real testimonial session. Bob had always wanted me to have another drink whenever we were around the hotel, so when one lady got up and said he was always one who was wanting to lift one’s spirits, I thought, “How appropriate!”
Bob was one who early in our sessions asked all the ladies up to his room for a drink. Some six or eight went, and when they got there he said, “What will you have?” One said a Seven-up, another, Orange, and the rest, Cokes. Bob was quite put out! He told me afterward women are that way, that any one of them alone would have taken a real drink, but when together, they all were afraid of what the others would say. He was a good sort whom I never knew well until I read his front page Kansas City Star obituary. Well, we got the memorial over creditably. I sold a lot of my buttons. ...
You may remember my story about seeing the buttons on the blouse of a woman on the boat between Capri and Naples. I approached her to buy them, but she was so sentimental about them she could not think of parting with them. That was nine years ago. The other day I received them, six pretty enamels, as she decided she no longer needed them to remind her of her mother.
In April 1974:
Dear Warren,
I drove to Sedalia Saturday to see who came for the State Button Show and Meeting. There were friends from Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas as well as our old Missouri cronies and it was pleasant to visit with them and see the many trays of beautiful buttons in competition. I didn’t have time this year to prepare a button tray entry. I returned Sunday afternoon and I was pretty well done in from all the socializing.
Three weeks ago Mildred, outgoing president of the State Button Club gave an outdoor picnic for all members at her beautiful country home. Lillian and I attended and stayed until we should have been chased off with a stick. I took the buttons I had for sale and sold about a hundred dollars worth. Since then I have sold many more to parties who were there. As I do not know what anybody would do with mine, if I should pass out of the picture, I thought I would get dispossessed as much as possible. You can’t picture, can you, what these collectors buy - anywhere from a quarter to $40 per button? I must admit I have sold only one for $40, but I have sold several for $25 each.
A woman from Leavenworth, Kansas, came last week with some samples from a 40,000 button collection she had inherited. She said she knew nothing about them — how rare they were, or what they were worth. Could I help her? She had many wonderful buttons, many I had never seen before, and was able to tell her she had a small fortune in them. I’d be thrilled to have them. I wish I could sell all of mine, but a liking for them won’t let me see them go. I haven’t been to the annual state meeting now for two years, but I still keep in touch. I no longer encourage anyone to give me a button. I keep what are thrust upon me. Price of buttons, like everything else, has gone sky high. I know I didn’t pay more than $10 for anything.
Warren, I am sending you a long-ago copy of the Missouri Society Bulletin in which is published the story of my day with Lillian Smith Albert in New York. In looking through this 1952 issue of the Bulletin, I note every other contributor to the issue has since died. Naturally, with all these delightful people gone, the button hobby no longer is of much interest to me. I have about arrived at the situation as when Margaret Edwards Simpich, an old New Franklin school girl friend, living in Washington, wrote to me for news of our schoolmates back here, naming those of whom she hoped for news, and I had to tell her, “They are all dead but you and me.”
March 1978
Dear Alice,
I had a call while I was watching “Guiding Light” telling me a lady was on her way to see me. I thought I could just kill her for calling at that inopportune moment, but hurriedly got on my visiting britches before she came in the door. When I saw who she was, I was quite pleased. It was Eleanor Marcus of St. Louis, the President of the Missouri Button Society, whom we have known for years.
I think Eleanor was quite impressed with the buttons I still had. Her idea was to see if she could help me find a buyer. A few days later Robert Hill called and made an appointment to see the buttons. He came with a little calculator and as I handed him each button card, he appraised it and put down the price he would pay. When finished and totaled up, it shocked me because I thought he would pay more. However, I let the buttons go rather than fool with them longer. There is little demand at a local auction.
As a result I am now buttonless except for my charm string, my button farm, and some military buttons. When I remember how I bought so many of mine cheap and so many were given to me, I figure the score is even. And there were hundreds so common there is no demand. Hill and I both knew that. I am relieved to have the buttons out of my hands. But what a glorious ride I have had on this hobby horse.
Anyone Collect Bed Pans?
Members of the Garden Club:
Madame President, I feel exalted by your flattering introduction of me as one of Missouri’s most interesting and versatile collectors.
Your attendance brings to mind the adage, “A Prophet is not without honor save in his own country.” If you will look about you, you will see the members from my side of the river are not here. One of them is my sister-in-law and the other is my farm neighbor on the north. Where are they? At home, languishing on beds of pain? No. More attractive entertainment bait was dangled before them and they have gone to another party.
But I shall not allow this to unhorse me, nor could it when I have so many other lovely ladies to accompany me on this hobby ride. Many of you I have known long and learned to love from afar. As for the rest of you, with me, it is a case of love at first sight.
I think I shall play this afternoon that you, as a group, are a colorful garden yourselves. You Girl Scouts present are the lovely seedlings which soon will bud and blossom. And you club members shall be the established plants: delphinium, campanula, digitalis, lily, daisy, gaillardia, all in full bloom, and without one fading blossom.
I have thought often of what I should talk to you about since your President invited me to come over and bring some fertilizer to stimulate your spirits. She suggested I tell you something about my “Hobbies” and “Collecting.” From early childhood I have never lacked a hobby horse to ride. Sometimes these rides made me acquainted with collectors of things I fancied so highly I engaged in their pursuit. So there are many angles we could consider.
Recently I have been reading Douglas and Elizabeth Rigby’s delightful new book, Lock, Stock and Barrel, a veritable storehouse of information concerning collectors of all the ages, so I have decided to pass on to you some of the thoughts about what is a collector and what makes him “tick.”
Let us reflect a little on what a collector is? For our times.
Here in Boonslick Country our early pioneer ancestors’ life was rigorous. Most of their household possessions had definite essential functions. Beds, dressers, chairs, tables, wardrobes, looms, spinning wheels, furniture, kitchen pots, pans and other household goods were brought from Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee. Other such functional things were crafted by skilled handicraftsmen who soon were migrating into the area. Such essentials were not easily replaced. They were carefully treated and passed down from generation to generation.
After the Civil War conditions quickly began to change. Machinery was developed which could produce identical items by the thousands that could be sold. Oncoming generations, lacking the sentimental attachment of their elders were attracted by these bright, shiny new things. They rid themselves of the old. Much was given to farm hands and servants or traded to them for labor. It was such things as these that first aroused my interest.
As our country has prospered, there is more collecting than ever seen before. It would be difficult to name a pastime which could muster over the centuries and the millennia a similar mass of devotees from children to graybeards, including athlete and disabled, king and commoner, intellectual and uneducated, the poor and the wealthy.
The Rigbys say the roots of this collecting phenomenon are the roots of man himself, nourishing as they do many millions of us through this ancient pastime. How many millions? No one knows, but in the field of stamp collecting, for example, it is estimated there are 7˚ million followers in the U.S. alone. Hundreds of books have been published and scores of special sections in newspapers and magazines are printed solely for the benefit of various collectors. There are 14,000 art and antique dealers who cater largely to collectors, thousands of collector clubs, large and small, local and state-wide, national and international, while in purchasing power, collecting is equivalent to a major industry.
The first prodding in the evolving dramas of collecting appears in that characteristic common to all forms of life, the instinct to live, to gather food to sustain life. The simplest type of collecting is to be found in the gathering and storing of food and other elements essential for survival.
Another type of collecting might be called external collecting. Beasts, birds and insects bring home and store away food that may be needed in times of scarcity. Others gather and hoard many useless objects but to them, things apparently attractive, curious and strange. The grain collecting ants have been a source of wonder since the days of King Solomon. The bee stores honey in combs, and a spider often sews up a reserve of moths, flies and caterpillars in neat bundles on her web. Certain woodpeckers gather acorns and store them in holes which they have pecked into the trunks of trees. Rodents are remarkable collectors. Incidentally, the pack-rat is credited with having a moral sense in that he always puts something in place of what he carries away.
In the case of Man, he has found a multiple use for the simple activity of accumulation. His method of forming a collection represents an intricate web of motives and techniques. The ultimate direction taken by human collecting in its various aspects is influenced by complex psychological mechanisms; by emotional urgencies; and by racial and cultural differences, as well as by basic impulses. His initial impulse to collect food for security has been transformed in many ways and he has turned toward the accomplishment of many ends.
Now having disposed of Man’s primary need to collect food for security, let us consider other kinds of collecting which appeal to him and to which he turns his attention. Some collect as a means to distinction which gives security to pride in accomplishment. There have been men who have delighted in the hunt, in order to wear about their necks the tusks of wild boars, the teeth of lions and leopards they have slain. The more they could exploit, the happier they were. Others have collected the most gruesome human trophies: heads complete with hair and skin, skulls, scalps and locks of hair. In some societies, the possession of many wives connoted distinction. Have any of you ever seen a display of mounted fish in a den or dining room, the prized evidence of some man’s prowess as an Isaac Walton?
Rosenbach doubtless feels secure in distinction as the world’s foremost book collector. He seeks “books so rare that they have survived only in a single example.” J. Pierpont Morgan felt he had reached the pinnacle of distinction desired as a collector when he completed his collection of the Garland Chinese porcelains, 60 million dollars’ worth, regarded the finest in the world.
Some collect as a means to immortality. A man may leave children and they may die or turn out badly. They cannot be counted on surely to perpetuate the line and desired reputation. But a collection can be left to bear its founder’s name. It will constitute a lasting monument to his predilections and achievements. And because a collector has identified his creation so closely with himself, he sometimes feels that, like a strong boat, it will bear him through the centuries after his body has returned to earth again.
In our country there are many museums, or wings of museums which bear the names of men whose wealth made such edifices possible, or who have given their splendid collections to posterity. Notable are the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and The Nelson Museum in Kansas City.
Henry E. Huntington of California said, “The ownership of a fine library is the surest and swiftest way to immortality.” There is the Charles Lang Freer gallery with its collection of notable oriental art, and Folger’s Shakespearian collection in Washington.
It is interesting to note one recent exception, that of Andrew Mellon. When he stipulated his great art collection, a gift to the people of America, was not to bear his name so that other collectors might be moved to add to it later, he evoked delighted and surprised gratitude.
Anyone knows that the value of a collectible is governed by the law of supply and demand. If a collection is not based upon too momentary a fad or fashion, it likely will retain its value, even in bad times. It may prove a better investment than the usual stocks and bonds. Not long ago, a label from a match box brought $800 just because a particular collector wanted that particular label to fill out a series in which he was interested. Currier and Ives prints with which many of you are familiar, sold originally for up to $4 according to size. But just one item has been known to bring $3600 at auction.
Have any of you ever found an interesting piece of old china or glass which intrigues you into a trip to the library to examine all of the books on those subjects, to gain knowledge of your possession? Probably you did not find a thing about the article in question but it is likely that, as you thumbed and scanned the pages, you learned something else worthwhile. But if you find that you have something rare, what happens to your aesthetic appreciation?
However, the Rigby’s did not explain to my satisfaction, nor can I tell you, why Mary Smith has the impulse to collect old butter dishes, while Cousin Susie Snow feels her happiness depends upon her collection of salts and peppers. Why on earth does Mollie have her mantel full of elephants of every conceivable size and color? Why does your little boy come home, his face glowing with pleasure, his pockets crammed with “finds” from, perhaps, the town dump? He has not just picked these up. He has discovered them, chosen certain ones, rejected others, for reasons close to him. He brings his collection home to show you. He feels he can trust you with his confidence, or else he gloats over them in secret until such time as he can show them to his friends. Certainly he expects his audience to be duly impressed and to admire his cleverness in finding and recognizing so much of value.
Why does old Mr. Joe Brown collect baby shoes, and Mrs. Annie Carson of DeWitt, Mo., moustache cups? And why does Harry Jones have no impulse to collect at all?
As far as hobbies could carry me, I have ridden them most of my life. I have even changed horses in mid-stream. I collected stamps first, then came postcards, photographs of pretty girlfriends, this of course, as a means to knowledge and aesthetic appreciation, bottles and jugs, clocks, pressed glass, flowers, lamps, old locks, brass door knobs, music, complete card-indexed records of every marked grave in my native Howard County, history, bustles, but not bed pans!
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