Brown text on a light brown background

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Maroon text on a bright yellow background

“Up yours” is an expression used in defiance or contempt. It came about in the 1950s in the United Kingdom, and has a similar effect as the ‘middle finger’ gesture or telling someone to ‘shove it’.

Yellow text on a green background

In 1971, the National Women's Political Caucus was founded by a group of feminist pioneers to address the limited roles women held in public office. Instead of being constrained to addressing envelopes and serving coffee at political functions, this slogan encouraged women to seek more active roles in politics and elections by playing on those social expectations and stereotypes.

Click on https://buttonmuseum.org/buttons/women-make-policy-not-coffee or https://buttonmuseum.org/buttons/women-make-policy-not-coffee-0 to see additional variations of this button also held by the Button Museum.

Black text on a yellow triangle over yellow text on a brown background

The phrase “Yield, it’s more fun” featured on a downwards facing yellow equilateral triangle was a popular visual in the 1970s. It was most frequently seen on iron-on patches and buttons. The yellow yield sign was introduced to American streets in 1950 to assign right of way and encourage caution when merging. In 1971, the sign was updated to white with a red border and text, similar to the aesthetics of a stop sign.

Black text on a white background

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In response to the cookie-cutter, conformist lifestyle of the 1950s, an emerging generation of post-war youth decided to turn American culture on its head. The 1960s and 1970s saw the counterculture unfold as new music, films, and recreational drugs helped shape the new era. Peace-loving hippies and the creative beats of The Beatles were all the rage at this time and helped fuel the counterculture movement. People were even famously urged to “turn on, tune in, and drop out” by psychologist Timothy Leary.

In addition to the hippie lifestyle, the counterculture was also characterized by the sexual revolution. Old behavioral codes related to sexuality saw a drastic change-up as more people were accepting of contraception, abortion, and public nudity. Though the United States generally condemns public nudity today, it fit the prevailing attitude of the 1960s that called for sexual liberation.

Red text on a white background

The Go Fly a Kite Store is a hobby store based in New York City. The name of the store references an idiom meant to tell someone to go away who is being annoying that gained popularity in the 1940s and has been used in pop culture decades later.

The 1964 Disney classic film Mary Poppins put a spin on the action of flying the kite as an enjoyable family enterprise and something that should be done to take a break from work, in an iconic scene influenced by the book, but not directly taken from the text of P.L. Travers original story.

Kites were invented in Asia with the oldest known depiction of the act of flying a kite dating to the mesolithic period 9500-9000 years B.C.E. In the modern age, kites are flown as a recreational hobby, scientific and military apparatus, and for sport.

Black and red text around an illustration of shoe prints on a white background

AIDS Walk Philly was established in 1987 when volunteers from Penguin Place, a Philadelphia lesbian and gay community center, recognized a need to raise funds for local agencies and increase public awareness of AIDS. The first walk raised $33,000 and in the following 33 years the annual event has raised over $16 million dollars with proceeds funding disease prevention, HIV/AIDS public awareness campaigns, and services for those living with HIV/AIDS in the Philadelphia region. Initially the branding for the first three walk-a-thons used only the phrase “From All Walks of Life” due to the stigma at the time surrounding AIDS, though by 1990  “AIDS Walk” was added to the walk-a-thon’s promotional materials.