Muscatine's Pearl Button Industry

The Mississippi River town of Muscatine produced billions of pearl buttons. By 1905, Muscatine made 37 percent of the world�s buttons and earned the title of �Pearl Button Capital of the World.� The rise and fall of the pearl button occurred over a period of 75 years. John Frederick Boepple, a German immigrant button maker, launched the industry in 1891. The button and clamming industries started small but quickly overwhelmed the town. Clamming became the Mississippi River�s gold rush while large automated factories and shell-cutting shops employed nearly half the local workforce. Entire families�men, women, and children�contributed to the industry, giving weight to the popular local saying �No Muscatine resident can enter Heaven without evidence of previous servitude in the button industry.� Although the industry peaked in 1916, several decades passed before the American-made pearl button buckled under the pressure of foreign competition, changing fashion, limited availability of shell, and the development and refinement of plastic buttons.