A Proposed Methodology Using Buttons and Other Clothing Fasteners to Identify 19th and Early 20th Century Clothing Assemblages

John C Aldridge

A Proposed Methodology Using Buttons and Other Clothing Fasteners to Identify 19th and Early 20th Century Clothing Assemblages

Year: 2017

Summary

Buttons and other forms of clothing fasteners are routinely found on 19th and early 20th century domestic sites. Typically these objects are analyzed and presented in summary tables by material type, occasionally by form, rarely by size and implied function. While signifiers of clothing – buttons, hooks-and-eyes and utilitarian studs are viewed in isolation and the clothing from which they are derived are not envisioned or interpreted. A proposed new methodology is to treat button assemblages as analogous to ceramic or faunal assemblages. Once isolated button types, viewed in this new manner, can be seen as representative of specific forms of actual clothing for men, women, and children. Using period clothing and general mercantile catalogues, as well as mortuary data from which discrete clothing elements and their associated button assemblages can be directly associated, a hypothetical total clothing assemblage can be potentially achieved at the site level.

Cite this Record

A Proposed Methodology Using Buttons and Other Clothing Fasteners to Identify 19th and Early 20th Century Clothing Assemblages. John C Aldridge. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435453)