ABSTRACT
The button is no mere appurtenance of costume. In order to explain transformations in button technology the authors must explore the processes of change in American culture that reach back into the nineteenth century. Cultural materialism, with modifications suggested by Magnarella under the rubric human materialism, is framework for analysis. Proponents of a cultural materialist research strategy have tended to select subjects for analysis that lie at the very boundary of human interaction with the environment. Before 1935, buttons manufactured in Rochester were handcrafted from vegetable ivory, the fruit or nut of the tagua palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa). Between 1930 and 1935 changes in the local industry were instituted that would shift manufacturing to capital-intensive processes. In the summer of 1930, with signs of business slowdown everywhere, Neil Broderson had some doubt about the future of the button business. According to Webster's Third International Dictionary, a notion is a small article such as a button; it is also an ingenious device.
