The story starts with a German man, John Boepple, in his button shop in Germany. He immigrates to the US with the resolve to search for more freshwater mussels. So yes, it is relevant if you're interested in telling a story of the events that transpired.

Because the article is about more than just the buttons.

For Boepple, buttons were the family business. At his shop in Germany, he had learned to craft them out of wood, shell, horn and bone. But pearl buttons brought in the biggest profits. When a German tariff put him out of business, Boepple became one of the nearly 1.5 million Germans who immigrated to America in the 1880s. “They each brought their own skills,” Joy says. “Mr. Boepple was a button maker.”

I think it's because it's the Smithsonian magazine. Smithsonian celebrates the origins of people and things that shaped some part of American history.

It's significant that "Boepple immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s, resolving to search for more of these freshwater mussels."

And he was German. Lots of Germans emigrated to the USA, especially around that time. so it's important context of who this man was