Ceramic button fragment (Archaeological Find)
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Title:
Ceramic button fragment
Subject:
At Harvard, buttons like this would be present on men’s shirts, for example on the cuffs. The following narrative connects the wider societal changes at the time with educational reform at Harvard in the latter half of the 19th Century.
William E. Byerly walked through Harvard Yard in the spring of 1873, still marveling at how different everything looked from when he first entered the college in 1867. Eliot had completely changed the Yard in the few years he’d been president. Thayer, Matthews, and Weld had all sprung up in the last two years. Some alumni grumbled that they hardly knew the place, but Byerly could hardly be upset. He would be the first beneficiary of the new PhD program. In the summer, if all went well, he would graduate with a doctorate in Mathematics. He already had a teaching position at Cornell lined up, but already he could tell he would miss this school. He stumbled for a moment on a stone in the path, and the books in his arm slid against his cuff. The button popped off and fell into the grass. It was a small, white button, made with dust-pressing. He didn’t even bother to stoop and pick it up. Buttons these days were cheap. He could easily get a replacement for a few pennies. Factories in England and France were churning these out in the hundreds every fifteen minutes and exporting them across the sea. The world was changing. New inventions were exploding in the patent offices. Even Harvard was changing faster than anyone had believed possible.
Source:
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Three centuries of Harvard, 1636-1936. Harvard University Press, 1986.
Sprague, Roderick. "China or Prosser button identification and dating." Historical Archaeology 36.2 (2002): 111-127.
http://www.math.harvard.edu/history/byerly/index.html
http://www.prossertheengineer.co.uk/images/PDF/The_Dust-Pressed_Process.pdf
https://cdrhsites.unl.edu/diggingin/archeology/di.sr.0007.html
http://www.buttoncountry.com/PatentsImages/1841-prosser-Ceramic.pdf
https://s3.amazonaws.com/atg-prod-oaas-files%2Fanth1130%2Foriginal%2F332ff8d676d2c0c39c5b6ac1fab524f7.jpg
Object Name:
Ceramic button fragment, 4 holes
Inventory Description:
A white ceramic (porcelain) Prosser button fragment from the 19th Century, probably in the latter half. This button was made through the dust-pressed method. There is some controversy over the actual creators of the dust-pressed method, with each of the Prosser brothers claiming to be the originator of the idea.
Peabody Number:
2016.29.896
Culture/Period:
19th Century
Intrasite:
H930, Level 2
Depth:
57-67cm
Class 1:
Ceramic
Class 2:
Button
Quantity:
1