provided with a shank which
may consist of a metal loop or of a tuft of cloth or similar material,
while in the other they are pierced with holes through which are passed
threads. To these two classes roughly correspond two broad differences in
the method of manufacture, according as the buttons are composite and made
up of two or more pieces, or are simply shaped disks of a single material;
some composite buttons, however, are provided with holes, and simple metal
buttons sometimes have metal shanks soldered or riveted on them. From an
early period buttons of the former kind were made by needlework with the
aid of a mould or former, but about 1807 B. Sanders, a Dane who had been
ruined by the bombardment of Copenhagen, introduced an improved method of
manufacturing them at Birmingham. His buttons were formed of two disks of
metal locked together by having their edges turned back on each other and
enclosing a filling of cloth or pasteboard; and by methods of this kind,
carried out by elaborate automatic machinery, buttons are readily produced,
presenting faces of silk, mohair, brocade or other material required to
harmonize with the fabric on which they are used. Sanders's buttons at
first had metal shanks, but about 1825 his son invented flexible shanks of
canvas or other substance through which the needle could pass freely in any
direction. The mechanical manufacture of covered buttons was started in the
United States in 1827 by Samuel Williston, of Easthampton, Mass., who in
1834 joined forces with Joel and Josiah Hayden, of Haydenville.

The number of materials that have been used for making buttons is very
large--metals such as brass and iron for the cheaper kinds, and for more
expensive ones, gold and silver, sometimes ornamented with jewels, filigree
work, &c.; ivory, horn, bone and mother-of-pearl or other nacreous products
of shell-fish; vegetable ivory and wood; glass, porcelain, paper, celluloid
and artificial compositions; and even the casein of milk, and blood. Brass
buttons were made at Birmingham in 1689, and in the following century the
metal button industry underwent considerable development in that city.
Matthew Boulton the elder, about 1745, introduced great improvements in the
processes of manufacture, and when his son started the Soho works in 1767
one of the departments was devoted to the production of steel buttons with
facets, some of which sold for 140 guineas a gross. Gilt buttons also came
into