FIRST OFF, LEMME TELL YA WHICH “BUTTONS” WE’RE TALKING ABOUT. 1.
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WHAT WE HAVE ARE OUR BELOVED PIN-BACK BUTTONS AND THEY ALL TELL A STORY. 1. 2. 3. 4.
A lenticular button, a.k.a. “flasher”. Depending on the angle, you either get a smile or a kiss. 1966 art button from the Park Place Gallery in New York. Anti-prohibition button from the 1930s, and a timeless sentiment. Woodmen of the World, who actually sold insurance, not wood.
5. Nuclear disarmament symbol, a.k.a. peace sign. 6. An early 1930s fabric button featuring Felix the Cat. 7. Smiley face for Just Pants, a store that sold, you guessed it, just pants. 8. A summer celebration souvenir from Washington state c. 1949. 9. The Mr. Peanut character was designed by a 14-year-old boy in 1916.
1789-1896 THE DIRECT LINEAGE OF BUTTONS AS WE KNOW THEM STARTED HERE:
Special buttons were made for George Washington’s inauguration jacket. Metalsmiths started making similar buttons as souvenirs. There are 26 known basic varieties and people are still finding these in the ground with metal detectors.
1789-1896
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Though George Washington wore “pre-buttons” in 1789, THERE WASN’T MUCH NEED FOR CAMPAIGN ITEMS UNTIL THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM BEGAN IN 1828.
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1. In 1852, Franklin Pierce and his opponent, Winfield Scott, were the first to use campaign items made with real photographs. 2. This 1864 Abraham Lincoln pin is made of brass and has a ferrotype. Check out the locking pin, it’s similar to the pins we use today. 3. Early printed celluloid campaign item featuring Benjamin Harrison from 1888.
1896 IN 1896, THE NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, COMPANY, WHITEHEAD & HOAG PATENTED THE CELLULOID BUTTON.
The pin-back button is born! 1.
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1897 back paper showing the button’s patent dates. No wonder people still call them badge, pin or button! This is the actual patent. William McKinley item declaring itself as a “button”. Since 1896, the button has been a staple in political campaigns. The solar eclipse in 1900 influenced an array of button designs where one candidate “eclipses” the other.
1896-1910 S
In the 1800s it was something special to own a printed image. Trade cards were already popular items for people to collect.
WHITEHEAD & HOAG WANTED BUTTONS TO PROMOTE EVERYTHING AND BE COLLECTED.
1896-1910 S 3. 1. 2.
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POLITICAL + CAUSE BUTTONS 1. Theodore Roosevelt rebus button (rose + “velt”). 2. Bicyclists led the “Good Roads” movement to have roads constructed and maintained by the government. 3. 1908 Taft presidential campaign button with broom attachment. The broom represents cleaning up dirty politics.
4. This World War I era button shows American propaganda beating Kaiser Wilhelm’s German propaganda, depicted as a dachshund. 5. Suffragists heated up the debate in the 1910s. Finally, the 19th amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920.
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ENTERTAINMENT + EVENT 1. This amusing pair of Wichita, Kansas buttons are skillfully illustrated and printed. 2. Compelling illustration featuring a line from Edgar Guest’s poem “In Detroit”. 3. La Fiesta de Los Angeles was an indulgent, frolic festival that helped the city develop economically in the 1890s. 4. Charmion was a performer and strongwoman whose trapeze strip-tease act so impressed Thomas Edison that he made a film of it in 1901.
5. Roney’s Boys were the first musical act to promote themselves with buttons. Led by Henry Roney, the rotating cast sang hymns around the country. 6. Explorers Cook and Peary both claimed to have first discovered the North Pole. This button with a miniature pole celebrates the controversy. 7. Beautiful Jim Key was “The Greatest Crowd Drawer In America” at the turn of the century. He was a horse who could spell, use a cash register and more.
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ADVERTISING BUTTONS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
The Arithmachine, a late 1890s hand-held computing device. Studebaker started manufacturing vehicles in South Bend, Indiana in 1852. This “turning wheel” emblem was used from 1912-1934. Floating lady heads beckon people to take swimming lessons. This button advertises Thomas Edison’s phonograph cylinder, the earliest form of records. Whitehead & Hoag created this self-promotional calendar button only a few months after the button patent date.
6. This Pre-Prohibition beer button shows a magical brewing process with elves and a bird working together at an artesian well. 7. A soap company encouraging customers to “Save the Wrapper” as redeemable coupons. The boy resembles the “What, Me Worry? Kid” who later influenced MAD’s Alfred E. Newman.
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TOBACCO AND CHEWING GUM COMPANIES GAVE AWAY LOTS OF BUTTONS 1. 2. 3. 4.
B oxe r Peter J ac kso n wa s o n e of t h e b e s t fi g h te rs of h i s tim e . Whitehead & Hoag made collectible button series featuring countries, states and flags, to name a few. Rube Goldberg, the cartoonist responsible for “I’m the Guy”, is more known for his funny and unnecessarily complicated drawings of inventions. Little Pinkies is an early character-button series mainly produced for the American Pepsin Gum Company.
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”Social lubricator” buttons are meant to get people talking. We can only imagine what this turn of the century button means. There are 154 different Yellow Kid buttons. The Yellow Kid was a comic strip in the late 1890s featuring a boy named Mickey Dugan who lived in the slums. He’s the reason the term “yellow journalism” exists!
1920 S -1940 S
Flappers wore flirty buttons on their garters.
1920 S -1940 S During these 30 years, the U.S. experienced prosperity, a sudden depression, a war and expansion.
BUTTONS REFLECTED CELEBRATION, STRUGGLE AND AMERICAN NATIONAL IDENTITY. 1.
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1. Depression-era mechanical button. When the string is pulled, the elephant gets an ass kicking. 2. Button encouraging the ultimate goal of WWII. Design includes “victory” written in Morse code.
1920 S -1940 S 1.
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AMERICAN IDENTITY 1. 2. 3.
Commemorative button from 1927 celebrating the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. Lindbergh was only 25 and became the first TIME magazine “Man of the Year”. Metamorphic button features two images. Right-side up, it’s innocent, but upside down it’s quite bawdy. B/G Sandwich Shops paperweight button for an early fast food chain. They delivered a “purely American meal in a minute” and discouraged tipping. Note the sandwich crest.
4. Disney has a long history of using pin-back buttons, like this rare product advertisement from the 1930s. 5. The umbrella became the symbol for anti-alcohol “dry” activists. They gained enough support to make alcohol illegal from 1920-1933. 6. On President Hoover’s last day in office, he signed the Buy American Act, which required the U.S. government to purchase American-made products during the Depression.
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WWII-ERA 1. Superman was created during the Great Depression as a reflection of an American ideal. In his new land he has great strength but is vulnerable to Kryptonite from his old world. 2. Strongly worded anti-Axis powers button from WWII. Illustrated faces of the leaders of Italy, Germany and Japan share space with a cute little rat, who is presumably not one of the 3 rats to be exterminated. 3. Cartoon character “Perky Phelan” was used to promote paint during the post-war construction boom in the late 1940s.
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The United Jewish Welfare Fund started in Los Angeles in 1930 and raised money to support Jewish migration to Israel. A wall plaque button from the 1932 campaign, Roosevelt beat Hoover in a landslide, winning 42 of the 48 U.S. States. As Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces, MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender in WWII and oversaw the country’s rebuilding until 1951.
1950 S -1970 S
Kids would collect entertainment buttons and display them on their beanies.
1950 S -1970 S
The 1950s is considered a decade of rigidity and conformity. People were often afraid to take an oppositional stance while the following two decades were times of radical change and individual freedom.
AS PEOPLE FELT FREER TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES, BUTTONS INCREASED IN POPULARITY. 1.
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1. Solemn Ike button. 2. Women’s Liberation Movement button designed in 1969 by Robin Morgan. 3. The streaking fad broke in 1974.
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THE 1950 s 1. 2. 3.
The Space Race between Cold War rivals U.S. and U.S.S.R. influenced the popularity of space-themed items. “Love Me Tender” put new words to the 1861 Civil War song “Aura Lee”. Elvis performed the song on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 and it received one million advance orders before the record was released. Senator Joseph McCarthy was a primary anti-communism crusader during the Cold War. His accusations of disloyalty and treason without evidence coined the term “McCarthyism”. He died a few years later of an “ism” related to alcohol.
4. Pat Boone was a wholesome pop singer who covered popular R & B songs by black artists and introduced them to white audiences. 5. This simple and direct advertising slogan promoted GE automatic coffee makers for the home. 6. Playful and charming button featuring one of the earliest uses of the word “pollution” referring to the human degradation of the environment.
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THE 1960 s 1. JFK delivered his famous “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” line at his inaugural address in 1961. 2. The “I Have a Dream” speech called for the end of racism and was delivered by Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 to over 250,000 people. 3. The “Stones” were formed in 1962, part of the British Invasion, and are still active at the time this sentence was written in 2014.
4. The peace symbol was designed in 1958 to campaign for nuclear disarmament in Britain. The image was created by Gerald Holtom and is shaped after a super imposed “N” and “D” in semaphore (flag signals).
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MORE 1960 s 1. 2. 3. 4.
Tiny Tim was an eccentric ukulele player known for his falsetto voice. His marriage to “Miss Vicki” on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show attracted 40 million viewers. A late 60s psychedelic Honda motorcycle homophone button. As Neil and Buzz left the spacecraft to walk on the moon, Michael Collins, who stayed onboard, said, “You cats take it easy on the lunar surface”. Peter Max and his family fled Nazi Germany and settled in Brooklyn. Max’s psychedelic and colorful style greatly influenced 1960s visual culture.
5. The Black Panthers adopted this logo from the Lowndes County Freedom Organization because a panther will only fight back when provoked. 6. Penelope and Franklin Rosemont were the first to print this slogan and produced thousands of buttons at the Solidarity Book Shop in Chicago. 7. One of many counter cultural buttons created by Underground Uplift Unlimited, an ephemera shop in the East Village. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin started the Yippie movement next door to the shop in 1967.
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1970 s 1. 2. 3. 4.
The Mobilization for Survival group started in 1977 to ban nuclear power and weapons, stop the arms race, and fund human needs. Image showing President Nixon as a louse with an ear trumpet, referring to his spying on the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Complex. Promotion for the “Dance Your Ass Off” dance party in 1970s San Francisco. The Frisco Disco’s dance floor held around 500 dancers. Promotional button for The Ramones’ 1977 record, Rocket to Russia . They’re pictured in their uniforms of t-shirts, jeans, motorcycle jackets, and buttons.
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Peanuts and toothy grins were used both for and against Jimmy Carter in his 1976 presidential campaign. A sentiment of a proud escapee or non-supporter of the Vietnam War. The war lasted from 1956-1975. Big Bird was designed by Jim Henson and debuted on Sesame Street in 1969. He was made to subtly shed feathers as he moves.
1980 S -2010
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1. The Bears “shuffled” their way to the Super Bowl and the Grammys in 1985. 2. In 1981, IBM chose to use Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp character over Alan Alda and Kermit the Frog to sell their computers. 3. Hand-drawn, grassroots effort warning people about the danger of this newly available drug.
1980 S -2010
In the post-Cold War era, the U.S. became the world’s only “superpower”, exporting technology, culture and military influence.
WITH ADVANCES IN PRINTING AND THE INTERNET, BUTTONS BECAME MORE ACCESSIBLE.
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1. E.T. was one of the most popular films of the 80s. 2. Blunt patriotism was often expressed during the first Gulf War. 3. Pretty much anything is available on the Internet, including wigs for your cat.
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1980 S -2010 1.
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1980 s 1. 2. 3. 4.
In 1980, more people tuned in to see who shot J.R. than voted in the presidential election. Spoiler alert! It was Kristin Shepard. Devo uses surrealist humor and the de-evolution concept to create engaging and comical merchandise. Poking fun at privileged preppy culture. Wendy’s mocked their competitors’ smaller burgers and this slogan became a popular catch phrase.
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While Gorbachev was restructuring the Communist party, Bud Light mascot Spuds MacKenzie was starting a party of his (actually her) own in the U.S. A good example of how buttons distill ideas. While Reagan’s inaugural speech was 2,452 words, this button only has 10.
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1990-2010 s 1. 2. 3. 4.
Keith Haring was a prominent street artist in New York City in the 1980s. His work was simple, colorful and often dealt with sexuality and AIDS. NKOTB was a popular boy band that sold 80 million records and untold numbers of buttons. 250 of these glow-in-the-dark “Glowbama” buttons were passed out at the 2008 Victory Rally in downtown Chicago. Brooklyn Brewery’s logo was designed by Milton Glaser. Glaser was also the designer of the famed “I Heart NY” campaign from the 1970s.
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Detroit blues-based garage rock band, The White Stripes, wrote the song “The Hardest Button to Button”. Dayton, Ohio rockers Guided by Voices were Busy Beaver’s first button customer. This button was a prototype for that order in 1995. Socks the cat moved into the White House with the Clintons in 1993. He was a trusted adviser and always wore a tuxedo. Kids of the 1990s fondly recall Book It buttons. Pizza Hut rewarded reading with personal pan pizzas. In 1992, 17 million students were in the program.
OVER THE LAST 118 YEARS, AMERICAN HISTORY HAS BEEN DOCUMENTED THROUGH BUTTONS AND THE TRADITION CONTINUES. PRETTY GREAT, HUH?