POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Half an oyster shell demonstrating pearl shell button manufacture.

Object No. 10007-1

This object is part of a collection which illustrates how pearl shell was made into pearl buttons in Sydney in the 1930s. The display was given to the Museum by The Pearlbutton Manufacturing Company of Foster Street, Sydney, in 1933. Pearl divers in places such as Thursday Island, Broome and Port Darwin harvested the Golden Lip pearl shell, (Pinctada maxima), from which the buttons were made. The shell was shipped to the Sydney factory for production. After cutting the button shaped pieces from the shell, the 'blanks' were then split to an even thickness, an operation performed by hand and one requiring considerable judgement and skill. Buttons made from pearl shell were valued because they were durable and retained their lustre unaffected by washing. After World War II, plastics replaced pearl shell as the preferred material for buttons. The Torres Strait supplied over half the world demand for pearl shell in the 1890s. In addition to buttons, pearl shell was used for cutlery, hair combs, jewellery, decorative objects and inlay for furniture. The Powerhouse Museum collection includes a variety of objects made from pearl shell. The early Australian pearling industry has been revealed to have relied on exploitation. ' At Shark Bay, Western Australia Aboriginal people were forced to work, even kidnapped, (a.k.a. “blackbirded”) without wages to collect shell. Later they were required to dive without equipment into deep waters for shell. The working conditions were very poor and dangerous. Once diving suits were invented, divers, who were often Japanese indentured workers, were required to spend hours at a time under water with danger from shark attack, poor weather and the ‘bends’. The mortality rate may have been as high as 50% for divers.'1 References 1. https://www.austbuttonhistory.com/australian-button-history/pearl-shell-button-industry/ Anni Turnbull, Curator, 2024