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

The Chicago Cougars were a short-lived but memorable team in the World Hockey Association, active from 1972 to 1975. They played their home games at the International Amphitheater and embodied a gritty underdog spirit that shone brightest when they reached the 1974 Avco Cup Finals. Their journey was chaotic; they dealt with venue conflicts involving other Chicago sports teams and even had to play their championship games at a suburban ice rink because of a live performance of Peter Pan. This improvisational approach reflected their unpredictable but determined style of play.

Financial troubles plagued the franchise, leading to a rare situation where players took ownership in an effort to save the team. Their plan for a new arena failed, and the proposed site was sold and developed into what's now the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, IL. Over their time in the league, the Cougars changed divisions and fought hard to compete, but economic and logistical hurdles proved too tough. Despite their short existence, they remain a fascinating, scrappy chapter in Chicago sports history symbolized by bold branding like the button above, which captures their fierce energy on the ice.

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.

Illustration of a white zeppelin and seafoam green clouds on a dark blue background with red text on the bottom of the button

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917)—inventor of the Zeppelin, known colloquially as “Zeps”—flew his first airship, LZ 1, in 1900. Originally a German general, Zeppelin revolutionized air travel in the early 20th century. Zeppelin’s airships were originally for civilian use, and the first commercial passenger service was established in 1908. Passengers sat in gondolas hung underneath the hydrogen filled balloons of the airships, where they could witness beautiful views. The German armed forces, however, used zeppelins throughout WWI, each with the capacity to store up to two tons of bombs. Certainly, this provided a different kind of “view” which is explored here; this button features a Zeppelin flying amongst green clouds, which may serve as a symbol of war chemicals and bombings. 

By the end of WWI, Zeppelin military use had fallen out of favor due to the airships’ vulnerability to airstrikes and explosives; upon impact with the hydrogen-filled balloons, the airships would catch fire and crash. The most famous example of this can be seen with the Hindenburg disaster on May 6th, 1937, a Zeppelin which caught fire and crashed in New Jersey, killing 26 people.

Illustration of a black punk-style leather jacket on a yellow background

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Black text on a white background surrounding an illustration of a yellow half-circle sun with mutli-colored Crayola crayons interspersed with the yellow illustrated sun rays

The Crayola Drawing Club was operated by Binney & Smith Co., known today as Crayola LLC, and held periodic drawing contests which children were encouraged to enter. Membership to the club required sending in a specific flap from the packaging of a Crayola product as proof of purchase. In exchange, children would receive a membership certificate and a pin like this one. Prizes for winning drawings included crayola products, seasonal items, or cash prizes.

Black text on a white background above an illustration of Masonic imagery (from top to bottom): a sword, an upside-down half blue and red moon adorned with the Sphinx, and a yellow star

The organization known today as “Shriners International” was originally known as the “Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.” Dr. Walter M. Fleming—a Masonic scholar—founded the first “temple” in New York, 1872; he created the fraternal order (composed of Master Masons, 32nd degree Scottish Rite Masons, and Knights Templar York Rite Masons) and modeled the organization’s rituals after Arabian and Egyptian literature. Members are best-known not only for the red rez hats they don, but for their philanthropic work through the Shriners Hospitals for Children.

The symbol of the Shrine—two claws that join in the middle by the head of a sphinx followed by a star that dangles down between the claws—represents fraternity, charity, and the members who are instrumental to the organization. More specifically, the sphinx head repesents the Imperial Council of Shriners International, while the star symbolizes the thousands of children—“stars”—that receive health assistance from the Shrines Hospitals for Children.

Today, Shrine Temples can be found throughout the world, and the fraternity has almost 300,000 active members.

Illustration of a blue, red, and white Esso motor oil can on a white background

In 1859, Colonel Edwin Drake and Uncle Billy Smith drilled the first oil well in Pennsylvania, a monumental feat that lead to an “oil boom” across the country. In nearby Ohio, the Standard Oil Company formed in 1870 and, by 1882, the company had offices in New Jersey and New York as well. By 1885, Standard Oil was used everywhere, from engine oils that powered generators and motors to kerosene for lamps. By the turn of the century, Standard Oil "rubbed elbows" with important figures and inventors of the day; Thomas Edison used Standard Oil for his first generating system and the Wright Brothers used Standard Oil and lubricants for their pivotal first flight.

The idea to use cans to store petroleum is also a product of the early 20th century. Though the first tin-plated cans were patented in 1810 for food use, it wasn’t until 1900 that cans were used to store petroleum-based products. In 1926, Standard Oil brought out new types of fuel under the trade name “Esso,” so-named after the phonetic pronunciation of the initials “S” and “O” in Standard Oil, housed in tin-plated canisters such as can be seen with this button.

Black text on a yellow background with a black and white interlocking square design in the center

During the American industrial revolution of the late 19th and early 20th century, significant immigration from both foreign countries and rural America into major American cities resulted in high rates of poverty and slum-like living conditions. In many of these impoverished areas, playing in the streets was prohibited and thus led to large groups of impoverished and/or homeless children with no outlets for their energy and creativity. This led to social reformers and charitable groups forming a movement for play and playgrounds to create safe and productive ways for children to spend their free time and expend their often-destructive energies. The first playgrounds were sand gardens, but by the early 1900s play areas began to be built in the style of model playgrounds with equipment like swings, building blocks, may poles, benches, and handball courts. Play on playgrounds was not an unsupervised activity and most playgrounds in the 1920s and 1930s had professional play leaders, but not standardized safety regulations for play equipment. In 1906 the Playground Associated of America (PAA) was founded and, with that, there was a push for more playground safety as many children sustained injuries on the unregulated equipment and hard surfaces that playgrounds were built upon. Playground safety groups began organically in local areas in the early 1900s alongside the emergence of the PAA as the public began to pay more attention to the importance of play in childhood development, as well as the necessity for safety regulations and monitoring by adults or trained teenagers.