For the history buffs, the following index provides about
130 examples of early button and clothing fastener patents.
In the forty-six years from 1790 to 1838, the Patent Office
granted 11,348 patents. However, In the fire of 1836
everything was destroyed -- models, drawings, specifications
and records, and the office had to commence practically
anew. In the following years there was some attempt to
recreate some of the patents destroyed by the fire but the
effort was very limited in its success. Therefore, all the examples shown
below are from the period of 1830 to 1890 and most claim improvements over previous inventions.
A number of these patents were issued to women. Just for fun, click
on the short patent description to see an image of the
patent as recorded in the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO). Some text is
difficult to read based on the USPTO scanning techniques and
the condition of the original documents. Several of the
examples are marked with ******* which will hold some
special interest to some. A few of the annotated patents
have notes added in blue or red to point out some additional
information about the patent or highlight interesting
features. One
wonders how many buttons from these inventions never made it
into a collection. For those with a mechanical bent, a
sample of
button manufacturing tools and machines are grouped at the
bottom of the table.
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