The history of the fresh-water mussel industry gives illustration of
the promptness with which an American industry may be developed once
the pathway is found. Undertaken in a small way scarcely more than a
score of years ago, the manufacture of pearl buttons began almost
immediately to assume the proportions of an important national
industry. As early as 1898, when the enterprise was only 6 years old,
there were about 50 factories in more than a dozen towns along the
Mississippi. With improved machinery and methods further expansion
occurred, until within a few years the output approximated 30 million
gross of buttons, with a value of many millions of dollars. The growth
of the industry has continued to the present time, but exact figures
will not be available until the Bureau has completed a statistical
survey now in progress.
Not less important has been a resultant economic change, or
modification of custom, that has affected practically every person in
the country. Where marine pearl was in rare use, fresh-water pearl,
with its quality and price, came to fill a universal requirement. In
one decade pearl buttons were high in price, used only upon the better
clothing, and commonly saved when clothing was discarded, while in the
most general use were buttons of metal or agate or wood, which rusted
or broke or warped. In the next decade good pearl buttons, neat and
durable, were available to everybody and used upon the widest variety
of clothing. A former luxury had become a common necessity.
Coincident with the rise of the manufacturing industry, there developed
an important and widespread fishery, directly employing thousands of
persons and indirectly affecting persons and communities of varied
occupation. Commencing on the Mississippi River, the fishery gradually
spread from stream to stream, passing from depleted territory to new
and rich fields, until it embraced practically the entire Mississippi
Basin and a portion of the Great Lakes drainage, from Minnesota to
Louisiana, north and south, and from Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee
on the east to Arkansas, Kansas, and South Dakota on the west.