Fischer's Pan Tan Bread

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Text on Button FISCHER'S PAN-TAN BREAD Made with EGGS CREAM
Image Description

White text on red background on top; bottom third has a blue background with white text along with a small illustration of an egg and jar of cream labeled in red.

Curl Text Whitehead & Hoag co.
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Like many other companies at this time, Fischer took advantage of celluloid buttons to catch the eye of bread-buyers. This trend began in the 1910s with the Ward Baking Company and really caught on by the 1930s.

Catalog ID AD0063

Eye-Deas

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Text on Button Look to the Sale Blazers for new Eye-Deas - This is Eye-Dea Number 7784 LE30
Image Description

Black illustration of cartoon face peering out on the left with a lenticular eye (watches you as you move), red text on white background.

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Have info on this button? Contact us here.

Catalog ID AD0076

Epcot Center

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Text on Button EPCOT CENTER
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Nigh time photograph of Epcot's icon, Spaceship Earth, a large metallic sphere lit in blue and gold (somewhat resembles a golf ball) flanked by palm tress. Text is small and in white at the bottom.

Curl Text copyright 1982 WALT DISNEY PRODUCATIONS
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Spaceship Earth, the 18-story geodesic sphere and theme park attraction, is the symbolic icon of EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), a Utopian city of the future planned by Walt Disney.

The term was coined by Buckminster Fuller, known for his innovative work with geodesic domes among other things. And it’s reported that popular science fiction writer Ray Bradbury helped design the dome and original storyline for the attraction. Construction took over two years, and was sponsored originally by Bell Systems before the breakup, then AT&T until 2004; German company Siemens took over sponsorship after that. The theme of the attraction being a travel through the timeline of human communication, it is updated regularly to reflect current realities.

Catalog ID EN0273

Dustbane

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Text on Button DUSTBANE - CATCHES DUST - CLEANS FLOORS, BRIGHTENS CARPETS - DUSTBANE MFG. CO. IPSWICH, MASS. CHICAGO, ILL.
Image Description

A black cat wearing a cylindrical container of Dustbane leaps on a pile of dust. Orange text outlined in black is featured at the top and bottom, other text is black.

Back Paper / Back Info

Made by Ehrman MFG Co. Boston Mass. [Union bug: Union Label - American Manufacture - LIP & BA] Factory Milford N.H. 

Curl Text EHRMAN MFG CO. MILFORD N.H.
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Dustband Products Limited is a sanitary solutions company founded in 1908 by two entrepreneurial Canadians, Chester E. Pickering and George W. Green. Their first bright idea was to convince people to buy from them a product they were already using for free! The product was sawdust, which at the time was used as to clean floors. Pickering and Green added some pine-scent, made the sawdust green and marketed it as Dustbane Sweeping Compound. It worked. Over the years Dustbane has become a leader in the cleaning and sanitation industry selling environmentally friendly products for cleaning, finishing, polishing, scrubbing, sealing and sweeping in all sorts of commercial environments.

Sources

Dustbane [Advertisement]. (1910, June 18). Geneva Daily Times.

Catalog ID AD0057

Hey Culligan Man

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Text on Button Hey Culligan Man!
Image Description

Red text with blue illustration of a yelling big-headed woman on a white background.

Curl Text Union Bug, Made in USA
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Culligan is an international water softening and purification company based in Rosemont, Illinois. Culligan is known for it's advertisements of a housewife yelling out the slogan "Hey Culligan man!" The campaign was originally created in 1959, and ran for 3 decades.

Catalog ID AD0099

Wilson's Corn King Bacon

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Text on Button Buy WILSON'S Corn King BACON
Image Description

Brown and red text inside white banner, vertically split yellow and red background.

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Wilson's Corn King Bacon is a premium brand that has its roots in Chicago's notorious stockyards of the early 1900s. Thomas E. Wilson (1868-1958) worked his way up from railroad car checker to president during his 25 year career at the southside's Morris & Co., but it was his subsequent role at struggling New York-based meat packing company Saltzberger & Sons (S&S) which stamped his name on the bacon. Wilson moved the headquarters to Chicago's Union Stock Yark and renamed the company Wilson & Co, Inc. in 1918.

Not letting anything go to waste, Wilson's side project as president of the Ashland Manufacturing Company (1915-1918) used animal by-products from its slaughterhouses to make tennis racket strings, violin strings and surgical sutures. Later renamed Thomas E. Wilson Company (Wilson Sporting Goods), the company expanded to include all sorts of sporting equipment. 

Sources

Chicago Historical Society. (n.d.). Wilson & Co. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1512.html

Chicago Historical Society. (n.d.). Wilson Sporting Goods Co. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2907.html

Foster and Kleiser. (n.d.). Extra Tasty...Extra Lean! / Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions (ROAD) / Duke Digital Repository. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r3s46h59c

Catalog ID AD0031

Columbia Graphophone

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Text on Button COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE
Image Description

A blue gramophone features white text within the image. The background is white.

Curl Text Bastian Bros Rochester, NY
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The Columbia Graphophone Company was the UK subsidiary of the Columbia Phonograph Company. The Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 and sold Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders, including some cylinder recordings of its own. The Graphophone Company became the UK subsidiary in 1922 and in 1931 it merged with the Gramophone Company to form EMI, or Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. 

Catalog ID AD0070

Clean Shirts Of America

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Text on Button CLEAN SHIRTS OF AMERICA
Image Description

"Army" of starched folded shirts marching on a map of the North America continent. Map is in orange, blue and white and surrounded by a dark blue ring with white text.

Curl Text PARISIAN NOVELTY CO. CHICAGO
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The slogan "The Clean Shirts of America" shows up in several newspapers advertising local companies providing laundry and cleaning services. Ad copy in the ads is the same or similar, all promoting the benefits of a clean shirt.

"Its procedure is simple. 1. Put on a clean shirt. 2. Look, feel and act prosperous. There's nothing like a clean shirt for boosting the morale. Join the Clean Shirts of America and take your place in the Big Parade Back to Better Times!"

The ads appear in the early 1930's coinciding with the Great Depression. The ads speak directly to the times: "boosting the morale" of the throngs of Americans out of work, and referencing "better times." Some of the ads include the Blue Eagle symbol - NRA Member: We Do Our Part" - representing companies that comply with the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Sources

Silver Lining Laundry. (1934, April 23). The "Clean Shirts" of America. The Herald Statesman, p. 11. Retrieved July 28, 2020, from fultonhistory.com/newspaper%2010/Yonkers%20NY%20Herald%20Statesman/Yonkers%20NY%20Herald%20Statesman%201934%20Grayscale/Yonkers%20NY%20Herald%20Statesman%201934%20Grayscale%20-%200364.pdf

Catalog ID AD0042

Please Don't Squeeze The Charmin

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Text on Button Please don't squeeze the Charmin
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White lettering on light blue background

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"Please don't squeeze the Charmin" was an expression said by fictional supermarket manager Mr. George Whipple. The hugely popular, and successful television commercials ran in the US from 1964 to 1985 and showed Mr. Whipple scolding customers who "squeeze the Charmin" while he would secretly squeeze Charmin when he thought no one was watching.

The famous tagline was created by John V. Chervokas, a 28-year old advertising writer at Benton & Bowles in 1964, for Proctor & Gamble's toilet paper brand. British-born actor Dick Wilson who played grocer Mr. Whipple in over 500 Charmin commercials said, "I've done thirty-eight pictures and nobody remembers any of them, but they all remember me selling toilet paper."

Sources

Bains, P. (2011, July 27). 'Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin' Creator Dies. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://adage.com/article/people-players/squeeze-charmin-creator-dies/2…

Charmin. (n.d.). The Charmin Story. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://www.charmin.com/en-us/about-us/charmin-history

Please Don't Squeeze the Charmin [Advertisement]. (1970).

Catalog ID AD0001

Ceresota Flour

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Text on Button "CERESOTA" For Young or Old - The BEST Flour sold.
Image Description

A colorful illustration of a young farm boy sitting on a bench, leaning on a canvas sack and wooden barrel, cutting into a large loaf of bread. Black text circles the illustration.

Curl Text BASTIAN BROS. ROCHESTER N.Y.
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Ceresota is a brand of flour introduced in 1891 by the Northwestern Consolidate Milling Company, the world's second largest flour milling company at the time, based in Minneapolis. As American flour milling migrated to the east coast, the mills were gradually closed in 1940-1950s. "The Million Bushel Elevator" Ceresota Building is one of only four remaining flour mills of the 34 operating in Minneapolis during the early twentieth century. Ceresota is currently sold in parts of the Midwest, New Jersey and Pennsylvania by private companies The Uhlmann Company and American Home Foods.

Sources

Ceresota Cook Book [1870 (ca.)]. The Alan and Shirley Brocker Sliker Collection, MSS 314, Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries. Available at https://lib.msu.edu/sliker/object/80

Northwestern Consolidated Milling Co. (2020, March 4). Numerical Mind Reader by Ceresota Flour [PDF]. East Lansing: Michigan State University.

Catalog ID AD0061