Pearl+Button+Industry+Threat+to+Mussel+Beds+of+the+Mississippi

Original Author: Davi Warden-Michl, A&S195 SP11 Revision Author:
 * Pearl Button Industry Threat to Mussel Beds of the Mississippi **

From the late 19th century until the Great Depression, port towns along the Upper Mississippi River were littered with pearl button factories to support a multi-million dollar clothing industry. A German immigrant, John Boepple, first noted that the mussels inhabiting this river were of similar quality to marine shells near his native land. “Before leaving Europe he had learned the trade of making buttons out of sea shells” (Roberts 200). Envisioning a lucrative enterprise for making buttons, he opened up a freshwater pearl-button factory in 1891 near Muscatine, Iowa, later dubbed the “Pearl Button Capital of the World.” Boepple was later edged out of the business by competition and was resigned to work “as a shell expert in the government biological station in Fairport, Iowa,” to examine the mussel beds he used to harvest for his buttons (Howe 400).

By 1912, “there were 196 separate plants employing mussel shells. . . located in 20 states” (Coker 89). Mussel harvesting was generally conducted by using dredges or hooks called “crow’s feet,” which mussels often mistook “for morsels of food,” latching upon them tightly before they were brought to the surface (Roberts 201). In button factories, mussels underwent a boiling wash, whereby their shells would open and workers would search for pearls in the clam meat, which was later “sold to neighboring farmers for hog feed” (Roberts 201). Then, button cutters went to work on the cleaned shells, each adept “in handling a particular kind of shell and in getting the greatest number of blanks” out of each (Roberts 201-202). These blanks were sent to the polishing room where they were bleached and smoothed out to achieve their lucrative iridescence, while the remains of the shells were finely ground into powder and became “an excellent poultry feed” (Roberts 203).

As indicated by the 1900 Report by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, there were already concerns that the mussel beds in the Mississippi River were exhausted from overharvesting, though these concerns stemmed from economic, rather than environmental motives (Smith CXXVIII). The most extensive mussel fisheries were located along a 200 mile stretch of the Mississippi between Iowa and Illinois and “the shoalness of the river ma[de] every part accessible to rakes and tongs of the fisherman and render[ed] the exhaustion of the grounds more certain, speedy and complete” (Smith CXXIX). The button industry in 1900 was barely ten years-old and this rapid depletion of was compounded by the fact that only a few mussel species were “adapted to [making] buttons” (Smith CXXVIII). This scrupulous preference for a half-dozen species of desired thickness, color, and durability nearly guaranteed their extinction (Smith CXXVIII). The industry became very lucrative and employed such a substantial number of fishermen and factory workers, “that its suspension would prove a calamity to many communities” (Smith CXXIX). The industry’s production of buttons and pearls was at one point valued at approximately 9 million dollars annually (Coker, 39).

In response to the threat of overharvesting, the Bureau forcibly closed portions of rivers for a period of years “in order that the mussel beds might have such a condition of rest and freedom from all injurious disturbances,” allowing for mussel replenishment (Coker 45). As these areas were first fished, the yield consisted of very large, established mussel shells, “which [were] coarse and heavy and often much eroded” (Coker 44). After a period of a few years, these larger shells were dredged up and fishermen were able to access the “medium-sized shells of the best quality” for making buttons (Coker 44-45). Eventually, the more profitable shells decreased in abundance and fishermen were left only with “the very infants” of the mussel population, requiring that they take three times the number of smaller shells for every adult-sized shell previously harvested (Coker 45).

One of the methods employed by the government to replenish the supply of mussels was through artificial mussel propagation. Many of these experiments were conducted at the biological station in Fairport, IA, where Boepple was employed. Before engaging in a discussion of artificial propagation, it will be helpful to review the various life stages of fresh-water mussels. During reproduction, mussel larvae (glochidia) are cast into the river currents and spend this infancy migrating to other regions of the environment. Although mussels have the ability to move short distances, they are essentially benthic in their adult form, meaning that once they have deposited themselves into a particular point in the sand or mud, they will not deviate very far from that area; however, during their delicate larval phase, they are free to move in the water and usually attach themselves to the gills of fish before depositing themselves into a new living space so they do not compete with adults for resources. The purpose of artificial mussel propagation was to “insure to a large number of glochidia the opportunity to effect attachment to a suitable fish” (Coker et. al 160). In areas suffering from severe mussel depletion, scientists gathered fish from the “immediate vicinity of the places to be stocked, infect[ed] them with the glochidia of the desired species of mussels and liberate[d] them immediately” (Coker et. al 160). They took the “brood pouches” of mussel eggs and dispersed them into holding tanks of captured fish and “infection” occurred when the glochidia sufficiently embedded themselves onto the gills of the fish, much like parasites (Coker et. al 161). These experiments in artificial mussel propagation were designed to “carry the young mussels through the most critical stage,” compensating for the environmental imbalance caused by intense over-fishing in river regions (Coker et. al 162).

By the time mussel propagation methods were refined, the pearl button industry experienced a decline, especially with the advent of plastic substitutes by the time of World War II. Despite this reduced threat, modern implements continue to disrupt river ecosystems, including mussels. Dams disrupt the downstream movement of mussel reproduction as well as upset river flow. Additionally, once mussel glochidia drop off their host and move to their final resting place, they cannot move out from underneath excess sediment and chemical runoff from farms. There is also the problem of invasive exotics, like the Zebra mussel, which reproduce much faster and generally eclipse the current species in a competition for resources. Mussels play a vital role in the river’s ecosystem and they were brutally diminished; first by the pearl-button craze, and later by the installation of dams, by excessive agricultural run-off, and by the introduction of invasive exotics. In many regions of the river, some mussel beds have never recovered.

Coker, Robert E. “The Utilization and Preservation of Fresh-Water Mussels.” //Transactions of the American Fisheries Society// 46.1 (1916): 39-49. Coker, Robert E. “Fresh-water Mussels and Mussel Industry.” //Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries// 36 (1919): 38-89. Print. Coker, R.E., Shira, A.F., Clark, H.W., and Howard, A.D. “Natural History and Propagation of Fresh-Water Mussels.” //Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries// 37 (1921): 77-181. Print. Harlan, Edgar R. (ed). //The Annals of Iowa A Historical Quarterly// 10.3 (1911-1912): 399-400. Print. Roberts, S. G. “America’s Fresh-Water Pearl-Button Industry: An Out-of-the-Way Commercial Activity and How it is Carried On. //Scientific American Monthly// 4.3 (Sept 1921): 200-203. Print. Smith, Hugh M. “Report on the Inquiry Respecting Food-Fishes and the Fishing Grounds.” //Report of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries// 25 (1900): CXIX-CXLVI.
 * Works Cited **

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