Documentation on the use of bone buttons in the 18th century. Sorry but the pics did not transfere to this page. For this file please go to the New England Colonial Living History Group site.
18th Century Buttons.Small carved, often "starburst" incised, bone buttons (left) were recovered from the 1784 wrecksite of El Cazador, as were plain, originally cloth-covered drilled bone buttons (right), shown here with ground-recovered fragments of bone from which such buttons were cut. Drilled bone buttons as shown at right are encountered at many early colonial sites, while carved buttons like those at left appear to be uniquely Spanish in origin.
http://www.artifacts.org/Fleetpage.htm
Buttons of the 18th and early 19th Century were mostly five holes, although there were two hole (usually on larger buttons than those of the late 19th Century), three holes, four holes, pinshanks, and swagged in shanks used as well. The most common of that era were the five hole. Two hole and three hole are scarce. Swagged in shanks were large loops and plates and/or early large plated, 4 way hump or box shanks. Many pinshank bone buttons were contemporary with Colonial Pearls. Extremely uncommon were 1 hole buttons used with a rawhide or gut strip or a round "bead" to hold the button to the fabric or hide used for clothing. These 1 hole buttons can predate the 1700s. Also, the one-hole buttons were also used as forms, covered with fabric or thread in elaborate designs, and sewn onto clothing similar to a pad-back.
http://www.tias.com/articles/buttons/dictionary1.html#B
Bone Buttons
Date: 18th Century
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Buildings & Structures: Residential
General: Military History
Social History
Political History
Type: Image
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm_v2.php?id=search_record_detail&fl=0&lg=English&ex=00000436&rd=119027&sy=&st=bone+buttons&ci=
The first bone buttons used to fasten garments were in 12th century France. Bone buttons were made by French bead makers in the 14th century, and by the 19th century, bone buttons were made throughout the British Isles. Some bone buttons were elaborately carved to simulate ivory.
http://keysnews.com/node/15183
Disks cut from animal bones have been made in a variety of sizes from prehistoric
times. They are usually sew-thru types with from two to five holes, although some
with metal rims and shanks have also been made. Since 1850, carved and inlaid
bone buttons have also been made. Bone buttons are made only rarely now but
are more common on sites predating 1850.
http://www.anthro.utah.edu/IMACs/475-Buttons.pdf
The U.S. General Services Administration approached master silversmith George Cloyed about reproducing items found at the site, including handmade and cast cufflinks and cuffbuttons, bone, brass, pewter and fabric-covered buttons, rings with glass stones, earrings and straight pins.
http://www.history.org/foundation/press_release/displayPressRelease.cfm?pressReleaseId=483
o BONE BUTTON TURNER: a person who made buttons using a lathe
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rigenweb/ocupaton.html
Bone Button
Stalwart catalogers, Anne and Kelley--having first dried off after a couple of hours of water screening--identified this bone button from Stratum 2 of Unit 52 (Compton Field).
Buttons such as these are fairly common on historic period sites, particularly of the 19th century. Shell buttons are also common and I will write a piece on them some time soon based on my research on shell button making in Delaware.
Both bone and shell buttons can be made with a simple lathe and drill technology. The lathing is particularly evident on the reverse side (lower image) and drilling is clearly evident in the holes on both sides. This piece is about 0.67" (17.25 mm) in diameter and 0.17" (4.25 mm) thick. The bone likely is from a large mammal and the source of the manufactured piece (i.e., domestic or imported) is uncertain. There were stores in town that sold buttons and other goods necessary for the making and maintenance of garments.
Buttons fall within that category of artifacts likely to have been lost, rather than intentionally discarded, but the fact that this item has been broken suggests that it was intentionally removed from a garment after it broke and then thrown away. That suggests that the deposit whence it was recovered represents trash disposal.
http://porttobacco.blogspot.com/2009/08/bone-button.html
Bone Button find: http://www.marylandaviation.com/B_Smith_Farmstead/study/unexpectedDisc.htm
In six pits used as 18th-century Dumpsters, they found such household items as a painted pearlware bowl from England, a chamber pot, a fractured teapot. They dug up a bone button, a domino, a piece of a flutelike recorder
http://bulletin.aarp.org/states/pa/2009/25/articles/dig_offers_glimpse_into_18th_century_life_philadelphia.html
The word button originates from the French bouton, a small piece of metal or other material used to connect different parts of garment by means of a buttonhole and used also for ornamentation. It is thought the button originated in 2000 BC in southern Asia around the Indus Valley region to be used as a decoration while pins and belts served as fasteners. These buttons were seashells carved into various geometrical shapes and pierced with two holes for attaching. Early Greeks and Romans used shell, and wood buttons, sometimes attaching them to pins; other early European ruins unearthed buttons of ivory, bone, jeweled, gold and silver.
http://www.fabrics.net/joan902.asp">http://www.fabrics.net/joan902.asp
Bone Buttons readily available…..http://www.daacs.org/research/Galle_SAA_2006_Final.pdf
Buttons (pewter/bone/copper) 30
Slave Lifeways at Mount Vernon: An Archaeological Perspective
http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/collections/index.cfm/pid/243/#table1
Lower class people in 17th- and 18th-century Brit¬ain and America fastened their clothes with hooks and eyes or points, which were strings with metal ends (Crummett 1939: 26). Cheap bone or metal buttons could be used to fasten the neck of a man’s shirt and the waist of his trousers
Artifact Analysis
All of the buttons found at the site date to the 18th and 19th centuries. They include sixteen metal but¬tons (eight whitemetal and eight brass); five porcelain buttons; and three bone buttons
http://www.smithscastle.org/whats_new/castle_chron_sp06.pdf
Bone
Sew-through bone buttons were common in America beginning in the mid-18th century, but unlike metal buttons from this period, bone buttons were entirely functional; they were most commonly used to fasten the waist of trousers (South 1963: 552). This type of bone button was made by hand, often at military forts. In the process of cutting button blanks a hole was drilled into the bone that the cutting tool was then centered on (figure 20). Four other holes were then drilled into the button resulting in five holes total (South 1963: 552). Sometimes the buttons were totally flat but usually a center circle including the holes was recessed, leaving a raised border. Bone buttons like these continued to be used well into the 19th century (figures 21 and 22). South’s types 19 and 20 are bone buttons of this kind
Much more on this site.
http://www.smithscastle.org/whats_new/castle_chron_sp06.pdf
Figure 3: Artifacts from Area 2. a. Scratch blue stoneware, ca. 1740-1770; b. Banded stoneware drinking cann, 18th century; c. Brownie Pin, ca. mid-20th century; d. Bone button; e. Faceted black glass button.
http://userpages.monmouth.com/~mcha/aharch.htm
three small bone shirt buttons Seventeen buttons of various materials were recovered
along with one sleeve-link fragment. There
were six brass and two copper loop shank buttons,
one, one-hole bone button
http://deldot.gov/archaeology/henderson_road/pdf/chap_8_artifacts.pdf
More commonly used buttons were of bone and wood,
http://freespace.virgin.net/rod.clayburn/clasper/meaning/clasp.htm
They even made their own soap and buttons from bones. http://genealogy.grampanet.net/meckeltomackley.pdf
Bone buttons could also be made at home with simple cutting tools, and the examples from the site may have been blanks in the process of production, which could have been tossed out before completion for any number of reasons.
http://www.smithscastle.org/whats_new/castle_chron_sp06.pdf
three small bone shirt buttons and one mother of pearl ...
deldot.gov/archaeology/henderson_road/pdf/chap_8_artifacts.pdf
three small bone shirt buttons and one mother of pearl shirt button
(Photographer: Michael Murphy, February 2003) [HRI Neg. 02069 D1-03].
_artifacts.pdf">http://deldot.gov/archaeology/henderson_road/pdf/chap_8_artifacts.pdf
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