Not much - there is a paper in Post-med Arch which I will dig out tomorrow
on Birmingham button making but it is largely about metal buttons. In my
email I referred to the evidence for cottage bone making from the recent dig
in Chester but this has not yet been published. Re the Leicester finds I
have decided that they are actually debris from a powered workshop - they
were cut from both sides unlike every other bone blank in Europe over the
last 1000 years. The workshop is probaly one documented in north Leicester
c. 1870s and may have shipped in bags of manure to the house in. S.
Leicester as it was  a byline of the documented bone shop. Plenty of
documentary evidence for bone button making but 19th century arcaheology is
still undeveloped here. Actually that reminds me to finish writing something
up on the Leicester debris especially as I have to give the bits back- all
very tricky as its a private collection and I really have millions of other
things to do. I am going to have to ask the University VC if I can even
publish. Sorry I can't be of more help.

paul


----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul M. Matchen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: Bone buttons - understudied artifact?


> Paul,
>
> Do you know of any references for bone button manfacturing in the UK?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul Matchen
> Archaeological Research Laboratory
> University of Tennessee
>
> On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 21:21:57 +0000, paul courtney
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>Thanks Mary for your usual dazzling erudition. I am trying to write
>>something about some C19 button waste found in the garden of Leicester's
>>University VC. Actually I haven't got the time (I am supposed to be
> writing
>>3 chapters of the Gwent County History -an unpaid job) to do much but if I
>>don't there will not be any sort of record. In C19 UK looks very like a
>>cottage industry done by low paid women and children and one suspects
>>finished off elsewhere. Button waste ahas been also excavated found from a
>>slum complex in Chester but the documents have no evidence of button
> makers
>>(Keith Matthews pers com).
>>There are button blanks associated with metal workshops from Philadelphia:
>>http://www.culturalresourcegroup.com/projects/philadelphia1.htm
>>
>>paul courtney
>>Leicester
>>UK
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Mary C. Beaudry" <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 8:04 PM
>>Subject: Bone buttons - understudied artifact?
>>
>>
>>> Hello, all,
>>>
>>> I have been writing about bone artifacts in another context, and have
>>extracted
>>> the tiny bit I wrote about bone button making in case the list of
>>references
>>> would be of use or interest to anyone (though to my regret, I've never
>>seen the
>>> article that Paul Courtney is seeking).  I'm writing about the artifacts
>>of
>>> needlework and sewing, and buttons are not included in this category
> (they
>>are
>>> more accurately grouped with artifacts of personal adornment), though
>>> manufacturing evidence is a wholly different matter.  Most of the bone
>>"buttons"
>>> found on historical sites are in fact button blanks or button backs that
>>would
>>> have been covered with some sort of fabric, though not necessarily in
> all
>>cases.
>>>  I think that the fact that sometimes the button making evidence seems
> to
>>be at
>>> the level of small-scale home industry indicates there was likely some
>>sort of
>>> commercial outlet for this work.  But as I said, I have dealt with this
>>topic
>>> only tangentially.  One object lesson in studying bone working is that
> no
>>one
>>> should ever assume that a slaughterhouse site would necessarily contain
> a
>>great
>>> deal of bone waste or wonder where the bones got to if they are not
>>present.
>>>
>>> Mary C. Beaudry
>>> A few notes on bone buttons
>>> Extract from a manuscript in preparation, on a different topic!
>>>
>>>         Evidence for manufacture of bone buttons or button blanks,
>>consisting of the
>>> artifacts as well as manufacturing waste (most commonly flat portions of
>>cattle
>>> bone, though other mammal, and even reptile bone was used at times), is
>>often
>>> found in contexts associated with plantation workshops or with the
> living
>>> quarters of enslaved Africans (e.g., at Brimstone Hill in St. Kitts, WI,
>>at
>>> Monticello in Virginia) as well as at the encampments and villages of
> free
>>or
>>> self-emanicipated Africans (e.g. Fort Mose in Florida) (Klippel and
>>Schroedl
>>> 1999; Kelso 1997; MacMahon and Deagan 1996: 19). This has given rise to
>>the
>>> interpretation that African craft workers fashioned these items, which
>>they
>>> undoubtedly did in some contexts, but similar deposits of manufacturing
>>debris
>>> have been found in Europe at both medieval and post-medieval sites as
> well
>>as
>>> from a number of late 18th-century British and American military sites
> in
>>North
>>> America (Klippel and Schroedl 1999: 228?229).  Such waste is also found
> at
>>> almshouses and other institutional sites.  Quantities of button backs
> and
>>blanks
>>> as well as debris at the site of New York City?s first almshouse (ca.
>>1730)
>>> suggest that "button making may have been on of the tasks required of
>>Almshouse
>>> residents" (Cantwell and Wall 2001: 276, Figure 15.9).
>>>         Bone button-making made use of flat portions of animal bone that
>>would otherwise
>>> have been discarded as butchery waste, as did scale-making, that is, the
>>> production of scales or side-plates for knife and fork handles. In
> Britain
>>more
>>> attention has been given to the working of cattle horn cores (for a
>>summary, see
>>> Robertson 1989;) than to manufacture of objects from long bone (but see
>>Armitage
>>> 1982, MacGregor 1985).  Horn was another material used for making
> scales,
>>> although the horn had to be rendered flat after it was softened; large
>>deposits
>>> of horn cores are often cited as evidence of the initial steps in this
>>process
>>> (See, e.g., Armitage 1982: 98, 102?104; Robertson 1989; West 1995: 31).
>>>
>>> References
>>> Armitage, Philip L.  1982.  Studies on the Remains of Domestic Livestock
>>from
>>> Roman, Medieval, and Early Modern London:  Objectives and Methods.  In
>>> Environmental Archaeology in the Urban Context, ed. A. R. Hall and H. K.
>>> Kenward, pp. 94?106. Research Reports 43.   Council for British
>>Archaeology, London.
>>> Cantwell, Anne-Marie, and Diana diZerega Wall.  2001.  Unearthing
> Gotham:
>>The
>>> Archaeology of New York City.  Yale University Press, New Haven.
>>> Kelso, William M.  1997.  Archaeology at Monticello:  Artifacts of
>>Everyday Life
>>> in the Plantation Community.  Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation,
>>> Charlottesville, Va.
>>> Klippel, Walter E., and Gerald F. Schroedl.  1999.  African Slave
>>Craftsmen and
>>> Single-hole Bone Discs from Brimstone Hill, St Kitts, West Indies.
>>> Post-Medieval Archaeology 33:  222?232.
>>> MacGregor, Arthur.  1985.  Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn:  The Technology
>>of
>>> Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period.  Croom Helm, London.
>>> MacMahon, Darcie, and Kathleen A. Deagan.  1996.  Legacy of Fort Mose:
> A
>>> Florida Marsh Yields the Remnants of Colonial America?s First Free Black
>>> Settlement.  Archaeology 49:54?58.
>>> Robertson, J. C.  1989.  Counting London?s Horn Cores:  Sampling What?
>>> Post-Medieval Archaeology 23:1?10.
>>> West, Barbara.  1995.  The Case of the Missing Victuals.  Historical
>>Archaeology
>>> 29(2):20?42.
>