Period Reference for Hand Sewn Buttonholes, 1884

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

All,

Apologies for being a bit tardy in posting this info. It is a companion bit of info on an earlier thread on period shirts. Here is a period reference for how to complete a buttonhole for cotton/other fabric and linen. A bit wordy but typical Victorian detail. The illustrations are, as they say, worth a thousand words.

The source for this information is: The Complete Encylopedia of Needlework by Therese Maria Josepha von Dillmont (1st edition, 1884 - translated from French).



The passage on sewing buttonholes in its entirety reads:

“Buttonhole Stitch and Buttonholes in Linen (fig. 40). Cut a perfectly straight slit in the material, large enough to allow the button to pass through easily, having previously marked out the length by means of two rows of running stitches on each side, two or three threads apart, the stitches in the second row taking up the threads of the material left in the first row. Working from left to right, pass the needle through the slit, and insert it from behind so that the eye is toward the slit and the point downward. The thread is then passed round under the point of the needle from right to left, and the needle drawn through toward the other edge of the slit. The stitch is drawn tight, as close as possible to the edge of the slit. When the first side has been finished, throw three or four threads across the end of the slit and buttonhole them over, thus making a little bar to prevent the end from splitting. Then do the second side of the slit like the first, with another buttonhole bar to finish off the other end.  For making buttonholes in underwear, use DMC (Dollfus, Mieg & Cie) Alsatian sewing cotton, DMC best 6 cord sewing machine cotton, DMC cotton lace thread, DMC special quality crochet cotton, and DMC Alsa, which are strong, closely twisted threads. The last three are attainable in colors and therefore are suitable for modern underwear.

Buttonholes in Dress Materials (fig. 41). Mark out and cut the slits as already described. If, however, the material is liable to fray, wet the freshly cut slit with a solution of gum Arabic and let it dry before working. Here only one traverse bar is made to complete the buttonhole. The end in which the button will rest must be rounded, and the stitches form a semicircle enclosing it. In thick cloths it is best to cut a very small piece right out. It is also a good plan to lay two threads of coarse silk, or a very fine cord, around the buttonhole, work the stitches over this, and draw it up a little when the buttonhole is finished, in order to straighten the edges. This gives firmness and strength, while keeping the stitches from getting stretched in use. For this work we especially recommend DMC Alsa and DMC Alsatian cordonnet, which are made in a great variety of shades.”

(note DMC = Dollfus, Mieg & Cie, a thread and material manufacturer in France since 1746)

[Delmonico]

Good stuff, thanks a bunch.

[Silver Creek Slim]

Great info. Thanks, pard.

Slim

[Advertising]

[O.T. Buchannan]

I've hand sewn some button holes.  Mine didn't come out as pretty as those in the illustration...

[James Hunt]

Outstanding source material! Thanks Brass for the efforts and your technical expertise in posting those images  (inside joke there). Just looking at those images gives an understanding to why the purchase of a pair of PC pants is north of $100, and the shirts I have seen with handsewn button holes are the other side of $70.

I have read that even after manufactureres started using sewing machines, the labor force still would hand sew the button holes. I presume the button hole attachment for the sewing machine - which I recall my grandmother using - was not available.

Does anyone have a source that discusses the advent of the machine sewn button hole, and an indication when this would have become common in the manufacturing process?

[Fox Creek Kid]

http://www.vintagefashionguild.org/content/blogcategory/51/85/#Sew

[Dr. Bob]

Fox Creek Kid,

Interesting site.  Pretty good post 1900 from what I have found being a vintage collector for the last 10 years.  I would guess the section on hats is 20th Cen. ladies hats.  Mules were available for men & women in the 2nd half of the 18th Cen. and the 1st quarter of the 19th Cen.  So much to learn, so little time!   I sure wish that I could sew button holes that looked that good.  I need to read the 'structions again and try them the next time!

[Mick Archer]

  Howdy Pards!

  NEW ORLEANS DAILY PICAYUNE, April 17, 1864

Inhumanity of the Humanitarians.

At a meeting of the working women, held in Cooper Institute, New York, recently, one of their number made a statement of prices paid for the making of various articles, exhibiting them to the audience. The following are some of the statements of prices paid for work on articles exhibited:
A pair of drawers, made of white cotton drilling, 1800 stitches, sewed on the machine and well made, completely finished with buckles, button holes, straps and strings. The woman who made these drawers was a smart operator, and could finish four pairs per day working from 7 o'clock in the morning until 9 o'clock in the evening, receiving four and one-sixth cents a pair, or sixteen and three-quarter cents for her day's labor; resting, she says, long enough to make herself a cup of tea and eat a piece of bread.
Another very large pair of cotton flannel drawers, two thousand stitches, done by hand, double seams felled, with eyelets, button holes, buttons, stays and strings. The working woman to furnish her own thread--a rule adopted by employers since the price of a spool of cotton has risen from four to eight and ten cents. This woman, the mother of three children, was very poor, and came to the rooms of the Working Women's Protective Union, No. 4, New Chambers street, where she threw down the work, saying she had been working on these drawers for seven months and could not work any longer for the price paid. Said she, "I may as well starve without work as to work and starve at the same time." An inquiry revealed the fact that the wealthy firm who employed her paid five and a half cents per pair of these drawers, of which she could make two pair per day, remarking, "If I get to bed about daylight and sleep two or three hours, I feel satisfied."
A haversack pocket, made by hand, containing upwards of six hundred stitches and three button holes--two yards of sewing. This article was manufactured by a woman who thus tried to support her sick husband and four little children. Each pocket required on hour's faithful labor, and the compensation received was one and one fourth cents, or twelve and a half cents for ten hours' work. She furnished the thread.
A coarse flannel army shirt, large size, made by hand sewing. Collars, wristbands and gussets put on with double rows of stitching all round. The seams all felled, three button holes, buttons and stays, requiring upwards of two thousand stitches. The woman who made this garment was sixty years of age and too deaf to go to the store for orders. She has worked on these shirts since the war broke out, receiving seven cents each--one of them being a good day's work for her. Younger women might make two or perhaps three in twelve hours, furnishing their own thread. This old lady occupied, with another woman, a damp, dark basement, where she strained her eyes in the day, and sewed by the light of her neighbor's lamp during the evening. At the end of the week her net earnings, after paying for needles and thread, amounted to thirty nine cents in currency.
A fine white cotton shirt, with a fine linen plaited bosom, nicely stitched and well made throughout, containing eleven thousand five hundred sewing machine stitches, six button holes, felled seams, etc. Two of these shirts are finished each day by the operator, who employs nearly every moment of her time, finds her own thread, and receives for the garments sixteen cents each, or thirty-two cents for more than twelve hours' labor. These shirts sell for three dollars to three dollars and fifty cents in the retail stores. Their total cost to the employer is one dollar and fifty nine cents.
Ladies' collars and cuffs, containing 1700 fine sewing machine stitches, the outer edge being ornamented with an insertion of various colored trimmings. These articles of ladies' wearing apparel are made for twenty one cents per dozen sets--a set consisting of the collar and two cuffs. Three dozen sets are made per day by a good operator, working early and late. The thread is paid for by the woman who takes out the work. A dozen sets will cost:
One yard of linen…………………………….$ .90
One yard of muslin…………………………… .25
Fourteen yards of trimming at 8c. per yard…..…1.12
Labor and thread………………………………..21
_____
Total……………………………..$ 2.58
This retail price per set in the Broadway and Bowery stores is 75 cents. The wholesale prices are not less than $5 per dozen sets.
A fancy flannel shirt, well made on a machine, 1500 stitches, six button holes, and seven buttons, double stitched wristbands, bands and gussets. This article was made for eight cents, and is sold in the gentlemen's furnishing stores for $2.50. The cost of the article to the merchant is $1.12.
Board, which was formerly $1.50 per week, is now $2.50 to $3.

   Mick Archer

[Mick Archer]

  Howdy Pards!

   By Nick Sekela, of Historic Clothiers:

  Button hole machines-"Looking in the Keyhole"
by NJS

Grace Rogers Cooper's Book The Sewing Machine, Its Invention and Development, traces the development of stitching buttonholes by mechanical means. She stated that 1854 marked the first patent of a machine that was built to sew buttonholes. Charles Miller was the inventor of this "whip-stitched buttonhole stitch". The stitch was very similar to our modern zig-zag stitch. She goes on to state that a buttonhole attachment was patented in 1856. In order to make the buttonhole; one merely attached this to a standard machine. However, since there seems to have been more of a desire to be the first on the market with the new product than producing something of lasting value, it was mechanically lacking. Several years after the close of the War, this very design was modified, and functioned quite well.

Frank P. Godfrey in his International History of the Sewing Machine, ISBN 0 7091 9876 0, mentions a machine which was invented in 1860, and was little more than a modified Singer flat bed type. It featured an attachment that allowed one to move the fabric from side to side to create a zig-zag pattern. As one would imagine, it would be virtually impossible to keep the stitches uniform, which made the attachment difficult to control, if not outright unreliable. Consequently, the machine could do little more than plain sewing.

Mr. Godfrey goes on to mention two other patents for buttonhole machines in 1860. Jacob Steiner designed a machine which produced an overedge stitch, made of two threads. Although it produced a beautiful stitch, the machine itself was too intricate, making operation very difficult. The machine was very difficult to maintain, and prone to breakage of the delicate parts.

Mr. I.M. Rose patented a machine in the same year, which was considered to be a buttonhole machine. In practical application, it was more of an overedge machine, which is to say, the kind of stitch that one finds binding the edges of blankets. It was a very clever design, but once again, very delicate.

All of above machines could not imitate the stitch found on the buttonhole. It was dependent upon the operator to move the machine around the opening in a consistent manner. Needless to say, although it was faster, it was considerably more difficult to make a consistent buttonhole. These were not "automatic" machines, where you pushed one button, and the machine made the buttonhole for you. You had to place each mechanical stitch manually.

David Wood Green Humphrey patented a machine on October 14th, 1862, (patent number 36, 617) for overedge and buttonhole sewing. The machine itself was designed in 1859 by Kasmir Vogel. In Ross Thompsons' book The Path to Mechanized Shoe Production in the United States, he states that

"His machine was very advanced and had many of the principles still used in modern day buttonhole machines."

Thomson states

"(that) an automatic feed was constructed by securing the cloth to a rotating worktable which moved the cloth straight for the length of the buttonhole, rotated the cloth around the point of the buttonhole, and the progressed down the other side.

On August 3rd, 1864, he modified the machine with clamps to hold the fabric in place. His patent states "the portion of the cloth in which a buttonhole is to be worked, is first prepared by cutting a slit in it of the required length, with an eyelet at one end. It is then placed in a clamp consisting of a top and bottom clamp, having the general form of a buttonhole, but of larger dimensions. You could manually set the length of the buttonhole and the machine would

automatically stop. He made other modifications for the patent granted on March 20th 1865. However, Thomson states that

"The machine achieved significant success, but not as the product of the Union Buttonhole company, Singer arranged to manufacture and sell the Union machine, and improved it, and finally bought Union Buttonhole in 1867".

The number of buttonhole machines produced by Singer was not provided, making it quite difficult to determine the impact on the garment industry. Mr. Godfrey stated that two of Mr. Humphrey's machines are within the holdings of the Smithsonian Institution.

Thomson also mentions a buttonhole machine patented in 1862 by James and Henry House of Brooklyn New York. The firm of Wheeler and Wilson purchased these rights to this machine and retained the services of Msrs. House. Thomson states that

"an operative with two assistants to finish the ends could sew 1,000 buttonholes in a day, far above the 40 that could be done by hand. The Houses also designed an attachment for making buttonholes on family machines that Wheeler and Wilson considered to be its most important attachment."

After the close of the war, there were some other attempts at making buttonhole machines, but they, in the words of John Reece, "did not fill industrial requirements." John Reece was the inventor of the machine, which has set the industry standard, which we also use here at Historic Clothiers. Mr. Godfrey states that there were "eighteen patents between Humphrey's 1862 patent and John Reeces' patent of 1881, all of which were for straight buttonholes, and none of which satisfied the needs of the industry".

In 1882 John Reece patented the first automatic buttonhole machine, which was capable of making a consistent buttonhole without the operator manipulating the fabric. It actually cut the keyhole and sewed around the edge and very closely imitated the hand stitch. It also laid a gimp inside the stitch, which again was a feature of hand made buttonholes. He founded the Reece Buttonhole Machine Company in Boston, which produced the machine that is used by the garment industry to this day.

It wasn't until twenty years following Humphrey's 1862 patent did a fully functioning buttonhole machine come to fruition. During the Civil War period, the buttonhole machines were very difficult to run, and often gave inconsistent and poor results. As there are no solid numbers of manufacture, it is therefore very difficult to document the impact of the buttonhole machine on Civil War uniform production. Doubtless, there were garments made during the war with machine buttonholes, but the numbers were still eclipsed by those made by hand (emphasis added by KB, not by the author)

Hope this clears it up a bit,
Cordially,

   IMHO, while Mr. Sekela is mostly right in his research, he uses an original 1890's button-hole machine on his products and has a "vested interest" in "back--dating" his machine as he uses it on his Civil War uniform items.
  However, there are no surviving Civil War uniform items with other than hand-sewn button-holes.  He argues that we none of the machine-sewn ones have survived for us to look at...

    The problem with the first button-hole sewing machines was twofold.    One, a commercial grade, reliable version that was not fragile, prone to breakdown, and repair would become viable in the garmetn industry until the 1890's.  And two, the previous
machines did one side, and the operator had to turn the garment around to do the other side.  Plus, the net effect does not look like the button-hole attachment button-holes of today.

   Mick Archer

[Mick Archer]

  Howdy Pards!

  The American Annual Cyclopedia And Register of Important Events Of the Year 1862. Volume II, New York. D. Appleton & Company, 443 & 445 Broadway, 1863. page 702-703

Sewing Machines.

The attention devoted by inventors to this branch of manufacture, has developed may important and valuable improvements. Among the improvements recently introduced by many of the sewing machine manufacturers, is a device for braiding; a small hole is made in the cloth presser near the opening for the needle, and the braid is led through this from a spool, so that the said braid can be stitched to the fabric in any configuration desired; the fabric being guided to the figure or pattern mark upon it.
The sewing machine of Messrs.. Wilcox and Gibbs has also been improved so that it runs without being heard; the noise in sewing arises almost entirely from the feeding device where the metallic surfaces come suddenly together. In this machine the noise is prevented by the introduction of compressed leather at certain places in the feeding mechanism, and in practice this feed is found to be much more durable than those heretofore in use.
In the same machine a simple device is employed for determining the position of the hemmer; this consists of a small pin entering a hole in the bed, so that the hemmer cannot be misplaced and the stitching will always be on the proper part of the folded hem.
An important improvement in sewing machines was patented Nov. 11th, 1862 by J.A. & H.A. House, which is now the property of the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Co. It is designed specially for the working of button and eyelet holes, although the range of the invention easily adapts the peculiar stitch claimed to various other purposes, in fact it may fairly be said to supply the link which was needed to make the chain of automatic movements in all classes of sewing complete.
For many years it has been the constant study of inventors to produce a machine which would throw a stitch over the edge of any fabric, so as to cover or bind it. The great sewing machine corporations of this country had expended many thousands of dollars in vain attempts to realize what was finally voted by almost all an impossibility, though acknowledged to be a necessity.
There had previously been several partially successful machines designed for this purpose invented and patented, but as the inventors always appeared to entertain the idea that the fabric must be moved under or around stationary needles, the machines, though ingenious, were of no practical value, it being found impracticable to form a perfect eyelet or rounded end of the button hole.
The idea of holding the fabric stationary and moving the needles around it, at the same time throwing what may be termed a double loop interlacing stitch over the edge of the hole, finally occurred to the Messrs. House, and they, after several attempts, succeeded in producing the machine mentioned. The motive power or machinery to move the needles, one of which is straight and pierce with three eyes at the point, while the other is curved and has two eyes, is entirely below the bed plate. The straight needle is attached to an arm or shank which projects through a slot, above the bed plate, and this is fastened to a mandrel working from below; underneath the bed plate is a disk upon which are placed the spools, tensions, &c., and working through which in a slot is the curved needle or finger as it is called.
The cloth or garment in which the button or eyelet hole is to be worked, being punched, is placed upon the bed plate, the hole being directly over the slot, and the end of the needle shank projecting through it. The cloth is then pressed down upon the plate by what is called a foot or lever, and securely confined. On turning the crank, the needle shank rises, and then in its downward motion carries the straight needle directly through the edge of the fabric. The curved needle or finger which works through the hole brings its thread up over the edge of the cloth. This thread is caught by the straight needle in its downward course, then the finger draws down below the fabric and takes a loop from the straight needle, and ascending gives a loop again to the straight needle, thus forming a double interlacing stitch.
The disk, which is the most important portion of the machine, is mounted on a traveling carriage moved backward and forward by a screw.
When the operator starts the machine, the needles being at the lower end of the button hole are moved along the edge or straight side, by the screw feed; on reaching the end, the screw feed is disconnected from the disk by a switch, and a gripe or rotating movement carries the needle around the end of the hole, forming a perfect crescent; so soon as this half circle is complete, the switch again pushes the screw into position, and this by a reverse motion drives the needles down the other side of the hole to the point of departure, forming a complete button hole. The size of the button hole is readily regulated by an index attached to the machine, and it will work a hole two inches in length, or an eyelet of less than an eight.
An ordinary skillful operator will, with the assistance of two girls to finish or tie the ends, work one thousand fine button holes an inch and a quarter in length in ten hours, and all exactly alike. By the hand not more than forty can be made by the most accomplished operator in the same time.
As stated, the range of this stitch is not confined to button-hole making, but includes the sewing of sails, tents, awnings, indeed all classes of work requiring two straight or selvage edges to be bound securely and smoothly together.

    Mick Archer

[Fox Creek Kid]

Thank you Mr. Archer for great info. I've cruised Historic Clothiers' website several times and they are tops for authenticity. This confirms what I had always read whereas machine sewn buttonholes came into being, i.e., "mainstream"  in the 1880's.