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What’s in a name? For the cases of Pearl Street, the Pearl Ice Cream Parlor, Pearl Street Books, and Pearl Street Brewing Company, it’s a century of historic and city-building industry. The eponymous Wisconsin Pearl Button Company that once operated out of La Crosse, Wisconsin created a legacy that has lasted to this very day, its name adopted by generations of contemporary companies in downtown La Crosse.
The freshwater pearl button industry in the United States started with a German immigrant named J.F. Boepple in the late 1800s. A button-maker back in Germany, he brought his expertise to the States and spent years on a hunt for river clam beds. Eventually, he started up a shop in Illinois, and the practice spread from there. Previously, button-making factories in the North and Midwest were using important ocean clam shells to create their buttons, but this closer river shell proved to be a more popular - and less expensive - resource.
The Wisconsin Pearl Button Company started in 1900 and had more than 200 workers at its peak. Employing mainly women, the company seemed to take advantage of their workers, which often resulted in strikes against low pay, and child labor. Later on, the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company, based in Iowa, took over the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company. Unfortunately, karma struck and the company soon went under due to the depletion of natural resources and the creation of plastic. The button company in La Crosse, under both managements, lasted no more than thirty-three years.
Photo courtesy of the Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
Book - "The Story of My Life by Billie Button"
Book - "The Story of My Life by Billie Button"
1914
Published by The Wisconsin Pearl Button Co.
2021.fic.005
This is a pamphlet titled The Story of My Life by Billie Button, and it was published by the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company in 1914. The book starts with the story of a character named Billie Button, the anthropomorphic pearl button mascot of the company, who came from a clam in the Mississippi River. It tells of how he was caught and processed at the button factory. The rest of the book talks further about the processing and of manufacturing pearl buttons, as well as describing the values and history of the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company. Certain pages are even dedicated to how the company provides for its employees.
This story of Billie Button—as well as later chapters—was used as a form of advertising to draw in new customers during the decline of the pearl button industry. By the time these advertisements were published, companies like the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company were aware of the depleting populations of clams in the Mississippi. In 1933, just 19 years after this original advertisement was published, the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company was bought out by the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company which soon after switched to making plastic buttons.
Content Warning: Their is some language in this article that is deemed offensive in today's culture
Sign
Sign
1890-1920
Limestone
1982.029.01
This 30 inch by 40 inch advertisement, carved into a limestone slab, once belonged to the Wisconsin Pearl Company. The carved lion in the background was the logo of the Company. This stone would have been placed on the ground.
Sales Sample
Sales Sample
1903-1933
Cardboard & shell
1980.016.01
Before the industrialization of plastic, many everyday appliances—like clothing buttons—subsisted heavily off of natural resources. For the pearl button industry, this natural resource was clams and mussels. The clams and mussels were gathered off the riverbed of the Mississippi River and opened on the clammer's boat; those that held pearls were brought back ashore, while those that did not were discarded. Overtime, this resulted in the depletion of the river clam populations in the Mississippi, and also subsequently led to the industry switching to a cheaper, and newer, material for making their buttons: plastic.
Due to its sole reliance on a depleting resource, the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company was eventually bought out by the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company in 1933, which had switched to using plastic. These pearl button samples represent the product of, but also the ramifications of, industrialization.
Circular Saw
Circular Saw
1902-1927
Steel
2014.008.05
This saw is part of a donated button-making kit and was typically used by workers in the pearl button factories. The circular saw cut circular button blanks, and this one specifically is #5 in the pictures. Some materials in the kit are used to further shape and detail the button, including other saws (#2, 3, 4, 6, 8) and a dowel (#7). Others, like the chisels (#11, 12, 13) and clamp (#9), were used to open up the river clams. These tools were once owned by Peter Brunner, who was renowned as the fastest button-cutter in the Mississippi Valley by the La Crosse Tribune. He eventually was able to rise to an administrative position in the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company.
Sign
Sign
1890-1920
Limestone
1982.029.03
16 inches by 63 inches, this lengthy sign is incomplete. Originally, it would have read "PEARL BUTTON CO", but now this section reads "L BUTTO". The beginning and end of the signs have also been donated to the La Crosse Historical Society with this one.
Photo courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Dubuque
John Boepple - The Father of the Mississippi Pearl Button Industry
Boepple immigrated to the Midwest from Germany while searching for a new source of shell for his buttons. There was plenty of shell, but American business owners were uninterested in machines to make buttons from freshwater shells. After a tariff made marine shells less accessible for button manufacture, Boepple’s business took off.
In the 1900’s, machines were created that manufactured buttons up to five times faster than previous methods, but Boepple felt that the quality of the new buttons were inferior. This led to him being ousted from the business by his partners. He was also worried that others would steal from him or replicate his methods, so he bought unnecessary equipment and chemicals to confuse competitors and sat in his factory with a gun and guard dog to deter thieves.
After leaving the private sector, Boepple took a job with the Fairport Biological Station in 1910. This allowed him to address his concerns from eight years before upon noticing how drastically the mussel population decreased. Congress had hired the Biological Station to look into ways to replenish the mussel population. Unfortunately, Boepple cut his foot on a mussel shell while researching, and the resulting infection ended in death.
Created by Beau Brand, Ian Rickert, Kaley Lutker, Megan Moeller, Ty Jenniges. Influenced and reviewed by the UWL 2022 spring class of ART 215: Introductory to Museum Studies. Material provided through the support of the La Crosse Historical Society, and the Murphy Library Special Collections and Area Research Center, and PBS Wisconsin.
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