| Buttons were primarily used on men's clothing as a means to fasten any two edges together. During the time of the American Revolutionary War there did not yet exist such fasteners as zippers or velcro. The means of fastening two edges together, during the Eighteenth Century consisted of either buttons, metal pins, buckles or simply ribbons or strips of cloth. Buttons were sometimes made of wood or bone, more often they were cast from pewter or tinned iron. Expensive buttons were those made of silver or silvered brass. The wood or bone buttons would have holes bored through them from face to face in order to be sewn onto a garment. But metal buttons tended to have a small loop of metal rod soldered onto the backside. |
