Gary Grant

There are mussel shells along Midwestern rivers with neat circles cut out of them. The missing pieces went onto somebody’s shirt. By 1905, Muscatine, Iowa, was producing 1.5 billion buttons a year. Workers cut them from freshwater mussel shells hauled out of American rivers. “Pearl buttons” came from the shell itself, the lustrous inner layer called mother-of-pearl. The harvesting equipment was simple and ugly. A boat dragged lines of metal hooks across a mussel bed. When a hook touched the animal inside, it clamped shut. Its own reflex helped pull it out of the river. At the factories, workers drilled circular blanks from the shells, ground and polished them, then drilled the sewing holes. Women sorted the finished buttons by color. A clothing manufacturer wanted thousands that matched. The river supplied different species, different shades. As nearby beds thinned out, suppliers went farther afield. Mussels take years to grow. A factory could cut through the supply much faster. In 1908, Congress established the Fairport Biological Station near Muscatine to research and propagate freshwater mussels. Button manufacturers supplied the land. Their industry had reached the point where keeping the animals reproducing had become a federal research problem. The punched shells went back into rivers or found other uses. In Indiana, factory waste surfaced roads and walkways. Some lined graves. A shell full of round holes is worth a second look. You’re seeing what was left after someone cut the merchandise out.