Underwear Buttons

Underwear buttons were made of bone or glass and are distinguished by the two large holes.

Bone Underwear Buttons

Glass Underwear Buttons
While they have small collectible value, they are a curiosity in today’s broad array of buttonless underwear. So how were they used? This question was posed recently on the Buttonbytes discussion boards and received the following two interesting replies:

From: “Sally Alsbury”

Seems like I’ve seen something like twill tape on old long underwear. A length of it was sewn on in it’s middle, leaving two equal length “strings”, with which to tie the button on. This was to save the buttons from going through the ringer and getting broken. And I’d bet the lye soap wouldn’t have been good for them either. This is not from personal experience, mind you. Just from poking around in lots of old stuff. 8~)

“THE SAGA OF THE BONE UNDERWEAR BUTTON BY ADA NELL” by Ada Nell McComas

O K this is what I remember about long underwear or sometimes referred to as “union suits”. First let me explain that not all long underwear was long. In summer time the legs and sleeves of the garment were short (everything else the same) buttons down the front and a flap in the back that buttoned across with about three buttons. The ties were of a soft flat cotton braid and sewn directly across from the button holes, the holes in the buttons were large in order to accommodate the size of the ties. The reason I remember wearing long underwear has to do with the flap in the back. I believe I can safely say the reason for calling it a flap is because when you are about two years old it is always flapping unless some loving adult helps you button it. Now having one flap is enough but when you wear what they called overalls (buttons were sewn on) and they had a flap in the back well for a little girl that is just two flaps tooooo many and leaves a lot to be desired in keeping your back side warm and not exposed to the world. Can you imagine what it was like to get fastened up in an out door toilet? Fortunately we had indoor plumbing. These garments whether for adults or children had to be washed. If you used a wash board you had to remove the buttons to keep them from breaking and also the temperature of the water heated over an open fire could cook a bone button and dry it out so as to crake. Some folks were fortunate enough to have a modern up to date washing machine with a wringer but the buttons still had to be removed to keep them from breaking especially if they were china. It was long about this time that I had to master buttoning my shoes with the buttonhook. When I got my first pair of soft cotton panties with lace around the edges and a soft little sleeveless undershirt I thought I had died an gone to underwear heaven. Your probably wondering how old a person is now that wore floppy underwear, Guess you will wonder, however, it wasn’t long until I learned to tie the bows on my high top shoes. I guess you can say I got in on the TAIL END. Later Ada Nell