WEDGWOOD BUTTONS, FASCINATING FASTENERS

A recent article in the Webster-Kirkwood (MO) Times, the local paper of the town where I grew up, prompted me to search in my library for my books on buttons.  I once inherited a collection of old buttons from an elderly dressmaker here in St. Louis, but other than that have never been a collector of buttons. I have had in my own collection, and bought and sold in my business, many of the Wedgwood jasper buttons given out over the years as the attendance favor at Wedgwood International Seminars.  The WKT article tells about Missouri collectors and the Missouri State Button Society which can be reached at www.missouristatebuttonsociety.org.  The article relates some of the interesting history of buttons, a needed tool we pretty much take for granted in today's sophisticated high-tech world! Go here to read the article in full and see more illustrations.

While buttons began in use long before the 1700s, relatively few existing today are much over 300 years old.  Early buttons were used by men as personal adornment, limited only by their means.  Wedgwood jasper buttons certainly would fill that bill!  Until about 1840, women's clothes were fastened with hooks, laces and ties.  Men's buttons were made of metal, shell, cut stone, porcelain, wood, glass and leather.  Since the end of the Civil War button manufacturing in USA became a more important business since by then buttons were considered ornamentation for women's clothing as well as for men's. Women's buttons were, and in some cases are still, made of mother-of-pearl, shell, china, horn, bone and ivory.  During Victorian times small black glass buttons were very popular with women, in imitation of the black 'jet' worn by Queen Victoria after Albert's death.  There is a National Button Society, organized in 1938 and today has over 3300 members. [Thank you to St. Louis area button collector Shirley Case who furnished some of the information for this post and for bringing her buttons to the talk at which I met her.]

The February 1964 edition of The American Wedgwoodian, a publication of the Wedgwood International Seminar, has a very well-illustrated and informative article specifically about Wedgwood buttons by the authors of The Button Sampler by Lillian Smith Albert and Jane Ford Adams.  Another book which offers sections on Wedgwood buttons is The Collector's Encyclopedia of Buttons by Sally C. Luscomb, with Wedgwood buttons illustrated on the cover as well as in the article.  If you are a novice Wedgwood collector or experienced button collector, or somewhere in between, and buttons and Wedgwood interest you, these publications would be worth finding. Contact us through our website for a copy of the TAW article mentioned here. And a hint for you jewelry buffs, the WIS buttons make up as spectacular jewelry when mounted in interesting custom settings!

Photo courtesy Mrs. Sara Branton, buttons, private collection.