Victim Of The Press

Black letters on white background.

“Victim of the Press” was a slogan that was part of the highly controversial Aesthetic Realism movement, founded by Eli Siegel in 1941.  These buttons were made and worn by members of the movement in the 1970s, mentioned in Nat Hentoff’s article titled, “Minority protesters trash First Amendment", published in the May 5, 1993 edition of the St. Petersburg Times.  Photos of this button were originally published in an April 6, 1981 article by Paul R. Grossman in the New York Native, titled “Victims of Aesthetic Realism”. The New York Native was a biweekly gay newspaper which shut down in 1997. Eli Siegel committed suicide in 1978, and the movement was said to have totaled around 100 members.