Pearl Buttons

Harvesting the River

Mother of Pearl

These mother-of-pearl buttons were manufactured by the Wisconsin Pearl Button Company. One of the major employers of La Crosse, they were only in operation from 1900 to 1933 because they put themselves out of business. Clam shells were pulled from the Mississippi River and crafted into fashionable buttons at such a rate that they decimated the clam population to near extinction.

Megan Kautz is from Greenville, WI. She is an Archaeology Major with Minors in Anthropology and Public & Policy History at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse.

Mixed-Media Mosaic: Glass, Buttons, Beads, Paper, Grout

We often take things in life for granted. In my mosaic, I emphasize how we think (or rather don’t think) of buttons – as something that is readily available and easily obtained. Laborers in the button factory likely thought the same of the clams they used, until they had nearly vanished.

Ingvild Herfindahl is a native Minnesota mosaic artist. She won an Emerging Minnesota Artist grant in 2014 and has exhibited her work throughout and Wisconsin.