Treasure Chest of Bootie

​At Museum Textile Services we recently received a generous donation of textiles and costumes to our study collection, most of them dating from around the very early 20th century. The MTS study collection is primarily used for teaching and research, though it also contains our founder Camille Breeze's family textile collection and a few special purchases. In this newest donation, one item stood out: a single baby bootie that showed interesting signs of deterioration. 

Infant Bootie. Image by MTS.

​The white kid-leather bootie has plastic buttons with metal shanks that show clear signs of corrosion. The metal buckle on the toe of the shoe is also corroded. The metal corrosion and its proximity to the plastic indicates that the button is made of a modern material that is releasing a chemical as it degrades, or off-gasses. This in turn is causing other nearby materials to deteriorate.  

Detail of white blooms and corroding metal shank on buttons.

Detail of corroded metal buckle on toe of bootie.

Identifying the Modern Material
​Modern materials can be identified using the date of the artifact and signs of deterioration, which are further outlined in a previous blog you can read here. The booties date from the 1880s to 1890s, when the two most common plastics in commercial production were cellulose nitrate and casein. 

​We can narrow down which material is most likely by examining the deterioration on the bootie:

• White accretions or blooms on the surface of the plastic buttons
• The plastic is sticky and has adhered to the leather in some areas
• The nearby metals are corroding
• The plastic gives off a sweet and acidic smell or “camphor-like” odor when rubbed

Based on these signs of damage, especially the corrosion of nearby metals, we concluded the button is most likely cellulose nitrate.  

Storage
​Now that the plastic has been identified the bootie will be properly packed and stored away from the rest of the donation. Cellulose nitrate is known to be flammable, due to the emission of gaseous nitrous acid, especially when it is exposed to ultraviolet light, high temperatures, and high humidity. Stored in its own box in the stable climate of our storage room, however, the risk is minimal. Silicone-release paper disks were placed around the buttons to prevent the sticky plastic from adhering to other areas. The bootie was then wrapped in Tyvek as an extra layer of protection during storage and handling. 

Infant Bootie with silicone-release paper around buttons.

To learn more about modern materials in your collection, visit the Resources section of the MTS webpage for handouts and further reading.

Kayla Silvia is a Conservator at MTS.  She has a BA and BS from (SUNY) at Oneonta, and a MPhil in Textile Conservation at the Centre of Textile Conservation from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.