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Shell Button-Making On The Delmarva Peninsula, Ca. 1930s-1990s, Siara L. Biuk

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Shell button-making in the United States began in northeastern industrial cities like New York in the late 19th century, using ocean shell imported from Australia and the south Pacific. A German immigrant brought the industry from Austria to the American Midwest after recognizing the potential of the freshwater mussel beds of the Mississippi River as a resource for shell button-making. The industry flourished for several years but suffered from labor strikes and depletion of the local mussel population. In the early 1930s entrepreneurs established shell button factories in rural portions of eastern Maryland and Delaware (Delmarva), again using imported ocean …