Civilian shirt buttons

[2ndNHDOC]

I would like to begin making some civilian style shirts and was wondering what would be the recommended type of button to use.(bone wood tin etc).

Thanks
Brian Schwatka

[Canton Zouave]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

The most common button in my research of period men's shirts has been the china/porcelain button. I have looked at some 20 (or so) shirts over the past couple of years, and the most common button has been china. Of these china buttons, most of the shirts I have looked at, have been the "Piecrust" or "Wagon Wheel" Porcelain button. The common "Inkwell" was also present on several shirts. I even had one shirt with "Dorset" or thread buttons, but this shirt was documented to the 1840's.

A good quick reference to look at shirt styles and button references would be William Brown's "Thoughts on Men's Shirts in America, 1750-1900". The book gets referenced alot here in these pages, and for good reason...it is a good reference.

I will try and post some pics of some various buttons that I have to give you an idea. I also invite anyone else out there to place their button pics here so that we may build a reference for future searches.

[Canton Zouave]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Here are some sample pics.

The buttons shown are:
1. Porcelain Button
2. Porcelain Inkwell button
3. Shell Button (shell type unknown)

These are three different "French Pattern" or Fitted shirts held in the Gettysburg National Military Park Collection. The blue shirt actually has three different types of buttons on the shirt.

I will post some more pics of button and buttons on shirts as I dig them up.

[hireddutchcutthroat]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Todd

What kind of material is on the 3rd shirt? I can see a slight pattern on the material, but I cannot really see just what it is due to the resolution.

Brian and all, you may take note of the button placement on the shirt in the 1st photo. This has been consistant with all the 19th century shirts that I have personally seen.

[Bill Cross]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

The most common button in my research of period men's shirts has been the china/porcelain button.

According to my friend, Chris Sullivan, white china buttons are also among the more popular for replacing the paper-backed tin ones on issue Federal trousers. These buttons were apparently cheap to make and plentiful, and you can often find whole lots of them on eBay for reasonable prices. The two-hole variety are more commonly used for drawers or flies, but the half inch (or thereabouts) variety are perfect for galluses.

[Peachfuz]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Todd,
I appears that the second shirt is made of an off-white light weight cotton and is machine top-stitched. Is that indeed the case? If so, to whom is the shirt identified?

Thanks,
Rich Taddeo

[2ndNHDOC]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

To all who have replied to this post I thank you. I will take your information to heart. (Especially you Bill as I have some trousers that need some new buttons). I am liking this forum more and more for the info and guidance.

Thanks
Brian Schwatka
(New to the progressive experiance mess)

[Canton Zouave]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

First off, let me explain the third shirt.
The shirt front is made just like a federal issue shirt placket (or lack there of). Then the embossed cotton is overlaid and stitched with a placket added to the embossed material. Which seemed quite unusual to me at first, and added a double front to the shirt. I may have a better pic of the material that I will post. At first glimpse it seemed like it was a broquade, however close examination under a good light revealed that it was a piece of heavy cotton with the pattern pressed (embossed) into the material. The Museum Catalog Record lists the shirt as being quilted amd embossed, but it is just embossed. To best explain the embossing as I observed, the pattern resembled closely gathered cells.

The second shirt is made out of what I would classify as a medium weight white cotton. It is not as light as hankerchief linen, but more like a 7 oz cotton. The shirt has some staining & details that would lead me to believe that the shirt has turned to the current shade of off-white/yellow. I did have some pics of a nice 1840 vintage shirt made out of fine light linen, but these pics were lost in my own personal great computer crash of 2003. I will try and get some more photos of this wonderful shirt to share in the future as a comparison.

As to construction. All three shirts have high levels of machine sewing to them. The blue one is entirely machine sewn except for the repairs which are shown in another post of mine (see the link), and the button holes. The sewing on it is far from what we would call straight. The other two shirts have all seams machine sewn and machine top stitching, but some flat felling was down by hand and of course the button holes.

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...ghlight=shirts

All of the shirts are held in the Gettysburg NMP collection, and like many things that they have, there is no listed provenience or cultural identity. Of the 5 or 6 shirts I looked at and 6 housewives, only one item was ID'd to a known soldier. Now of course this doesnt mean that they are not period, they just arent thoroughly documented as much as we would like.

Now I am done rambling....and I hope this answer all the questions.

[Jefferson Guards]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

From what I understand the cuffs that have the button and buttonhole placed near the sleeve body were "French" style cuffs. The purpose of having the button placed near the sleeve was so that the cuff could be doubled back upon itself. The only other cuff treatment that I know of is the band cuff for use with detachable cuffs.

Machine stitching on shirts (and other civilian manufactured men's clothing) is extremely common in this period. In the antebellum period both shirt factories and ready-made clothing factories were producing enormous amounts of clothing for sale throughout the nation. In 1854, the New Haven Shirt Manufactory of New Haven, Connecticut was producing one hundred dozen shirts daily. This factory was just one out of hundreds throughout the nation. In 1858 the New York Chamber of Commerce reported that two thirds of the garments produced in that city were being shipped to the South and the West. To put some figures on that statistic: the same report also notes that there were 32,000 garment workers producing $40,000,000 worth of clothing per year. This production capacity was large enough to allow New York to make the claim that their clothing trade was more than double that of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore combined. These goods were primarily machine sewn.
With the nation being flooded with these mass-produced men's clothing items, machine-sewn goods would have been common. With the coming of war these goods would have still been in use, and in the south, this old stock would have still been sold as long as it remained. And also, don't forget the vigorous second hand clothing market, which would have also kept these similar clothing items floating around for people to purchase.

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

I hope the button shows up. It has a decent provenance. Glass or porcelain.

[Canton Zouave]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Yes,

As we all know, the advent of the manufactured shirt is quite common, although we very seldom see the modern pics of these shirts, or so it seems.

Good examples would be the ones that we see from the two commonly referenced steam ship wrecks of the Arabia & Bertrand.

We can also reference shirt #17, on page 95 of William Brown's "Thoughts on Men's Shirts In America 1750-1900". In this, Mr. Brown references the fact that the featured shirts closely resembles the manufactrued shirts found on the Bertrand. The difference being that the Bertrand ones are wool.

As to cuffs, I have not seen reference to them referred to as "French Cuffs", but that doesnt mean much. (Perhaps we could get Hank Trent to chime in about some of the period styling terms) The fact that they extended to the top knuckle of the hand was a matter of evolved styling, so that they could be turned back easily to protect the edge of the coat. Brown references this fact in his work. Of course, the button placement for PEC would be towards the back edge of the cuff nearest the edge of the cuff and closest to the body of the sleeve. Many shirts of a lesser quality that we "might" run across show the common modern style of placing the button centered on the cuff. Even in shirt #17, you will note that the button for the cuff is placed to the back of the cuff, even though the cuff is of a smaller width than previous styling.

Just thumbing through the Brown book you will note how over 150 years cuffs go from narrow bands to 3-4 inch cuffs, and back to the spectrum of narrow. I even once seen referenced, and I dont recall where this was or I would reference it properly, that depending on who made your "On The Square" shirt would show various styles form various eras. Basically, this would be along the lines of whether your young sister made your shirt or your grandma. They would in turn make a shirt that was related to the style and era that they learned to sew in. Now if I could find such well documented shirts that could prove such a theory.


As for the reference to glass vs. porcelain, it seems that in some references these two terms are used to reference the same type of porcelain material.

Note:
Oops rambled again...sorry, and excuse any errors...I lost track of time and now I got to go to work and interact with the modern public...in negative ways.

[Jefferson Guards]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

When I had called the cuffs "French" style, I didn't mean to imply that was the period term. That would be what they stylistically resemble today with the cuff folded back upon itself. I went digging into the files and found an advertisement for the Ward Shirt & Collar Manufacturing from the early 1860s that illustrates the styles they were manufacturing. They offered three cuff treatments, one termed "Bands for Shirts with false cuffs", one "English Wristband" (which had a button and buttonhole near the sleeve body and a rectangular shape), and a "Old English Wristband," which also had the button near the sleeve body, although this cuffs openings were rounded rather than square. So, I guess one period term for these cuffs would be either English or Old English depending on the shape of the cuff opening. I am going to try to get a scan made of this advertisement so I can post it.

[Canton Zouave]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Brian,

I know which ad your are speaking of, or at least a similar one from the same company. In William Brown's book, on page 124 & 125 is a sample of an ad from the Ward Shirt & Collar Company. This ad shows the variety of seperate cuffs , plus the banded and english style cuffs. Since I am curious, and if you have the book, cross reference to see if they are the same ad.

The types of cuff that you mentioned would be for a more refined look to the shirt, and for special occasions or even every day wear based on your station in life. The larger cuff seems to be more prevelent in the samples that I have examined, but this doesnt by any means form any solid conclussion that could be made about cuff size. In fact the more styles that we can verify through research of original garments and through photographs will greatly add to the options that we as Living Historians can have for our shirts & other period garments.

The same thing will hold true for the original question on buttons...the more different varieties that we can document as used on a shirt the better in which we can expand upon a impression.

[Jefferson Guards]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons

Here are some photographs of two original shirts I have viewed. The buttons look to be glass or maybe porcelain. It is interesting that Shirt 1 has a front that is similiar to the embossed shirt front that is housed in the GNMP collection.

[Vuhginyuh]

Re: Civilian shirt buttons, Glass VS Porcelain

Any clear or transparent colored button is glass. Glass can also be opaque or it can be translucent (milky). Many stained-glass windows will display glass with many of these features, especially those made in and after the period we are interested in.

Procelain buttons can be translucent, letting some light ''glow'' through but for the most part is an opaque button because it is fired clay. You cannot see through it.

If you crack a button open it could be difficult to tell if it was opaque glass or porcelain

This can be tied to another thread for the clay used to make porcelain is a more refined and hotter fired version of the white kaolin used to make pipes.
Glass would vaporize in a fraction of the heat and time needed to fuse the silicates in clay to produce porcelain.

The loose use off the terms glass and porcelian together is very acceptable, though they are differnent products. After they are sewn to a garment their origin is insignificant as long as thier purpose is effective.

The difference may not mean much to us today but there was a world of difference to those early guildsman who made them. It can be an important archaeologically as well.

I am digging through some files to try to determine the origin, frequency and distribution of these products in the 3rd quarter of 19th century America.

I am thinking glass buttons are just coming into widespread use during the period. If any member has documention to share it would be interesting to see.