Button shows illustration of a baby in a tub over yellow and blue shading, with black lettering over a white background.
TOKIO Cigarettes FACTORY No 649 1st DIST. NEW YORK THE WHITEHEAD & HOAG CO PATENTED
This button's designer, George McManus, was an artist known for several early 20th-century comic strips, including Rosie's Beau, Love Affairs of a Mutton Head, and Spareribs And Gravy. One of his most famous strips was Bringing Up Father, which featured Jiggs and his wife Maggie. In 1995, Bringing Up Father, was part of the "Comic Strip Classics" series of eommemorative U.S. postage stamps. The character Jiggs is also on the insignia of the U.S. Air Force's 11th Bomb Squadron, in which McManus served during World War I.
This button was part of a set of 376 known, issued as premiums primarily with Hassan and Tokio cigarettes. They featured cartoons by artists such as as Rube Goldberg, George McManus, Bud Fisher, Hal Hoffman, and others.