White text on red background with small white bowtie with red text on the right.

The Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company created Budweiser beer in 1876 in St. Louis, Missouri. The company was founded by Adolphus Busch and his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. Anheuser-Busch decided to make a light lager beer using pasteurization originating from the Czech Republic, which improved shelf life and transportability. The Budweiser pale lager was the first to use this method in the U.S. and grew to become one of the highest selling beers in the United States. It is available in over 80 markets worldwide. Budweiser is most commonly recognized by promotional Clydesdale horses, which made their first appearance in 1993 and were employed to represent the living embodiment of America’s great industrial spirit.

Photograph of fruit in a blue bowl where the shadow cast looks like a rabbit on white background.

The original phrase, “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” implies something valid or legitimate. An example, “The jury needs to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt to make a decision.” A shadow of a doubt would mean someone was still not entirely convinced. The picture displayed here plays with that concept by introducing a visual shadow of a doubt. The fruit bowl cast a perfect silhouette of a rabbit; however, we can see no actual rabbit. The fruit is oddly arranged to cast the rabbit shadow. The image presents a literal shadow doubt making its viewer examine more closely.

Red illustration of a man with blue text surrounding him on white backgorund.

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Caricatured eagle with flag wings with white text on red and blue background.

Founded in Chicago in 1935, Polk Brothers was a home appliances and electronics retailer that had seventeen branches across the city during its peak. The company was established by Sol Polk, who was the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants. It was famous for its game-show like salesmen who were paired up with customers at the stores' entrances to negotiate and haggle prices like the show, "Let's Make a Deal." In contrast to department stores, Polk Brothers offered steep discounts and advertised that it had the lowest prices anywhere—a slogan later borrowed by Wal-Mart. 

Sol Polk’s enthusiastic sales pitches garnered national attention, which led him to be invited to Capitol Hill for legislative and regulatory hearings. Interestingly, Polk Brothers (the company) was responsible for selling the first color televisions and microwave ovens. In spite of its early successes, the business became defunct in 1992 after a devastating fire ravaged its warehouse and headquarters in Melrose Park. 

In 1981, Polk Brothers joined forces with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to launch a campaign that would inspire growth in American businesses. The initiative’s theme revolved around the phrase, “Let’s Rebuild America in the ‘80s: We Can Do It Together.” To promote the campaign, Polk Brothers spent $25,000 on two-hundred billboards that read “Rebuild America,” which were posted throughout Chicago. Signs bearing the same slogan were also found in Polk Brothers’ stores, and the owner further contributed to the campaign by distributing 4,000 letters to suppliers to advertise the initiative. The campaign did not end until 1990.

Black illustration of skunk with black text on white background.   

“Skunk Off” was a product created by the Thornell Corporation to remove the acrid smelling musk of a skunk's spray from the skin of people and animals. The unique chemistry that makes Thornell products so effective was originally developed during a test at Cornell University in the late 1970s. Thornell is America’s premier supplier of odor elimination products to veterinarians throughout North America.

Red illustration of a waiter holding drinks on a plate with red text on a white background.

Canadian Club is a brand of Canadian whisky produced by Beam Suntory. Popularly known as CC, Canadian Club was created by Hiram Walker and Sons, an evolution of a brand around a product that took place over the second half of the nineteenth century. Hiram Walker merged with Gooderham & Worts, Ltd. in 1926, yielding Hiram Walker-Gooderham & Worts, Ltd.

Canada rye whisky and Canadian whisky are used almost interchangeably. Canadian whisky distillers began throwing a little bit of rye grain into their spirits, which added a strong rye flavor prompting people to ask for rye whisky. American rye whiskey requires a minimum of 51% rye in the mash bill, but there’s no legal requirement for rye percentage in Canadian whisky.

The legal requirements for Canadian whisky are that it must be aged a minimum of three years in wooden barrels no larger than 700 liters, mashed and distilled in Canada, with at least 40% ABV. Canadian Club was popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Following prohibition, which closed many American distilleries, and World War II, when some of the major American distilleries transitioned into war-time tasks like making penicillin or fuel, it took a while for American distilleries to catch back up.

Blue illustrated bird on yellow background with red signature text and matte finish

David Berman was an American musician, poet, and artist most well known for his involvement in the indie-rock band Silver Jews (1989-2009). Berman was a beloved songwriter and has long been known for his lyrics. He was also a poet, publishing one work of poetry “Actual Air,” and an artist, with the cartoon collection “The Portable February.”  In 2009, Berman retired from music, as he believed his work could never live up to the wrongs done by his estranged father Richard Berman, a gun, tobacco, and alcohol lobbyist. He returned to music in 2018 as a co-producer and in May 2019, under the moniker Purple Mountains, released new music for the first time in over a decade.

Berman died on August 7, 2019 at the age of 52. The day after his death, an informal memorial was held by his friends outside the Met Breuer Museum in New York City.

The bird drawing is a piece of art work completed by Berman just before his death.

The lyrics “you can't change the feeling but you can change your feeling about the feelings in a second or two” are from the song “People” on the Silver Jews 1998 album “American Water.”

This button was manufactured by the Busy Beaver Button Co.

White and green text on black background.

“The Boss” was the motto Hitachi used in the 1980s. Hitachi is an international conglomerate company, well known in the United States for its departments that included power and hand tools. “The Boss can be bought” is a statement saying that their tools can be bought and to suggest that they were the “boss” of tools at the time. 

Hitachi was found in 1948 and manufactured coal mining machinery and equipment and power tools. They began selling their items in the United States in 1973 and the brand was changed to Metabo HPT in 2018 to give its power and hand tools a new look.

Red badge with gray scale circle containing hand holding wrench over laurel wreath illustration and text. Hole in button for name to slide in.

Studebaker was one of the longest-lived independent cars in America. The company began in the 1850s making wagons and wagon hardware for others. They supplied wagons to gold rush era ‘49ers, pioneers, and the Union army during the Civil War. Studebaker built and sold their first car, an electric, in 1902. Gasoline cars came two years later. Wagon production ended in 1919. Studebaker prospered in the 1920s, survived the 1930s, but had financial trouble after 1950. Production ended in 1963 and 1966 in the United States and Canada respectively.

Studebaker had two degrees of certification: Studebaker Qualified Mechanic and Studebaker Master Mechanic. The company issued regular Service Bulletins with quizzes. Once you passed, you could wear this ID Badge on your shop coat or a lapel pin on your suit jacket. It is thought that the Studebaker certification process was similar to the ASE certification program that mechanics take today. ID Badges were manufactured so that instead of creating one new badge for an individual every time someone passed into the program, the company could create badges in bulk and insert the name of the individual into the blank space behind the window.