Color illustration on a blue background of a girl with black hair, rosy cheeks, and blue eyes wearing two yellow bows in her pigtails; black and white checkerboard design around the rim

Carol Bouman was an illustrator popular during the 1970s and 1980s. Her work is best described as having "figurative collage elements" and "whimsical art deco influences." She illustrated several children’s books in the 1980s, including Pick of the Litter by Teddy Slater, The Fisher-Price picture dictionary by Dina Anastasio, RV and the Haunted Garage by Mel Gilden, and Where is Baby Twinkle? by Michael Teitelbaum. Bouman also collaborated with renowned musicians, including Jerry Lee Lewis, on album cover art. Her work has even reached the big screen! She was the artist for The Inheritance (1976) movie poster. While little known about her personal life, she has made a significant impact in various forms of commercial art.

See another Carol Bouman button in the museum's collection

Off-white background with an illustration of a person with typical punk styling and a red mohawk in the center, red text below, and five LED lights surrounding the image

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Black text and black smiley on a yellow background

Gus Savage was a politician and influential publisher from Chicago. He was an outspoken champion of equality and black liberation, but was marred by personal and political controversies. He served Illinois in the US House of Representatives for six terms between 1981 and 1993. Savage died on October 31st, 2015.  

Color illustration of an Amtrak train on a light blue background with white text above and below

The Turbo or Turboliner was the name of a train offered by Amtrak in the 1970’s. The slogan “Ride the Turbo” as seen on this button was a promotional saying used by Amtrak. The first Turboliners in the United States were French built and called RTL’s. The trains could pick up speed to 170 miles per hour. The Turbo, a gas powered train, was eventually taken off the tracks in 1981 due to its high cost to run. 

Black text on a silver-gray background with an illustration of mustachioed man in a beret on the right a pattern of horizontal lines around the top and left sides. 

Le Pac (short for local Public Access Catalog) was a library catalog product developed by the Brodart Company. Le Pac allowed users to perform complex searches of up to a million MARC records. Earlier versions of Le Pac contained its database on CD-ROM, while later versions could be accessed by CD or through the internet.

Black text on a bright green background

“Ssshhicago” was an official nickname given to the 1971 Chicago Noise Ordinance, a piece of legislation intended to reduce noise pollution in the city. The law was primarily directed at curbing noise from motor vehicles and factories, although investigations were made into complaints of noise from a wide variety of sources, including air conditioners, church bells, lawn mowers, and musical instruments to name a few.

Black text on a yellow background

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Black text on a white background with a stylized gold cougar on a green background in the center

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Black text above an illustration of a black bat on a white background with a red rim

While humorous, this button isn’t fully grounded in scientific fact. The myth of bats being blind is an inaccurate as is the idea that goldfish have three-second memories. Contrary to popular belief, most bats do use their eyesight alongside echolocation during flight. And fruit bats don’t use echolocation at all! Instead, they rely fully on their vision and sense of smell to find fruit. In fact, bats are thought to have better eyesight than most humans!

All this to say: bats get a bad rap, and not all expressions humans use are accurate!

Red rim and blue text on top of an illustration of blue water and a dark blue tunnel with red text on a white background in the center of the tunnel

In the 1940s, a series of risqué pinback buttons became infamous as gumball machine and carnival prizes. These small novelties boasted bold, comic-style lettering and cheeky illustrations, often framed by red or blue borders. Their humor relied on double entendres and mild innuendo, pushing the era's boundaries of decency while remaining tame by today's standards. 

"Pardon Me! Haven't We Met?" captures the Tunnel of Love's risqué reputation in pinback form. These 1940s-50s carnival and gumball machine prizes thrived on delivering sly winks about the ride's notorious dark corners where strangers sometimes became acquainted. The button's faux-innocent question packaged adult humor for teenagers palming coins, making it the perfect pocket-sized rebellion. Similar to the popular carnival barkers of the time, these buttons said the quiet part out loud, with just enough plausible deniability to keep them spinning in gumball machines everywhere.