(Radio Iowa) – Pearl buttons from Iowa are on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. — part of an “America 250” exhibit of rare objects and specimens from all 50 states. Dustin Joy — director of the National Pearl Button Museum in Muscatine — says someone from the Smithsonian contacted him about the project. “Most people don’t know what pearl buttons are. They are not made of pearls,” Joy said. “They are made from the Mother of Pearl that makes up the shells of freshwater mussels.”
John Boepple, a German immigrant, is credited with building the first pearl button factory in Muscatine in 1891. “Other people noticed what he was doing, that he was taking this free natural resource and making money at it,” Joy says, “so 14 years later, in 1905, Muscatine was making 1.5 billion buttons a year and they were making them from the shells of freshwater mussels pulled out of the river here.”
The mussels along Iowa’s eastern border were eventually wiped out and the industry kept moving south to capture mussels in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. “Ultimately, before the industry kind of came to an end they were harvesting shells in about 19 states, drilling out what they called button blanks, which are the little discs that were drilled from each shell,” Joy said, “and then polishing, grinding and shaping and drilling them to make pearl buttons out of them.”
While the plastic buttons sewn on a men’s shirt, for example, are often designed to look like pearl buttons, Joy says real pearl buttons aren’t identical. “This one might come from an ebony shell from the Ohio River and the next one you pick up from a washboard mussel out of the Mississippi River and the third one might come from the Rock River in Illinois,” Joy said. “…Each one has a different history and so I think that’s the fascination people have with them.”
Due to over-harvesting during the button-making era, freshwater mussels are now among the most endangered species in the U.S., which is part of the story being told in the Smithsonian display. If you can’t get to D.C. to see the pearl buttons from Iowa on display there, Joy invites you to the National Pearl Button Museum in Muscatine.
“It will be a surprise to you because most people don’t think about these commodities we handle every day, where they come from,” Joy said, “and this is an interesting story.”
The Smithsonian’s collection of natural objects from every state opened last Thursday.
