Black text around an illustration of a beaver character on a gold background

Christen Carter founded the Busy Beaver Button Company in 1995, working out of her college apartment. The company has grown and has produced over 85,000 designs and tens of millions of buttons. The company hopes to help people express their creativity and values industriousness, working collaboratively, and social responsibility. They are committed to green manufacturing and purchased an abandoned Chicago building to transform it into a green factory. Christen Carter and her brother, Joel Carter, also founded the Busy Beaver Button Museum in 2010, which is the world’s only pinback button museum. A button from every Busy Beaver Button Co. order is also added to the museum.

Black text on a white background

Beaver Falls began as a borough located in western Pennsylvania, founded in 1868. The borough was named Middle Falls after the division of the Beaver River it borders, but was renamed Beaver Falls. The river was a key element of the borough’s early success as a source for manufacturing that included a mill and a forge. The forge was a great success due to the kidney ore found in the ground while the mill produced thousands of pounds of yarn each week. In 1930, the boroughs of Beaver Falls and College Hill consolidated into one city named Beaver Falls, which had a population of 17,147 people.

Silhouette shape of a person's profile with an illustration of a yellow sun over a green tree on a blue sky with yellow and red at the bottom on a white background.

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Illustration of a flag with red and white stripes and a blue triangle with a white star on a white background with blue text

Puerto Rico (formerly Porto Rico) is an unincorporated United States territory located in the northeast Caribbean. It is an archipelago, consisting of one main island and several smaller ones. The islands were colonized by Spain in 1508 and named for their rich natural resources, particularly gold. Nearly four hundred years later, in 1898, Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, and in 1917, it became the first unincorporated U.S. territory.

One May 17, 1932, the United States Congress approved a law that changed the spelling from the Anglicanized version, Porto Rico, to the original spelling, Puerto Rico.

Black and white illustration of a man with dark hair and white shirt with his hands squeezing the neck of another man in a dark shirt with light hair.

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A blue, white and red striped flag with a red moon on the white stripe on a white background with black text

Illustration of a dog's head on a white background

This button was created as part of the Busy Beaver Button Co.'s Button-O-Matic 2006 series "Imaginary Friends". The series included this button by Andy Moran along with 6 others.

Orange and black text on a yellow background with three orange squares with black text along the top edge

Carson Pirie Scott is an American department store and mixed goods retailer that was founded in 1854. Originally a mail order company, Carsons expanded to a physical department store in 1899. The Carson, Pirie, Scott, and Company department store was constructed in two stages in 1899 and 1903-04 by well-known architect, Louis Sullivan. Throughout the years, the department store sold a variety of clothing merchandise, including a line of hats by ‘Louis of California’ referenced in the image.

Blue cross with white text on a white background

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway (commonly known as Santa Fe) was chartered in 1863 with plans to connect Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, with Santa Fe, New Mexico, by rail lines. The lines were completed in 1880. Santa Fe campaigned for tourism with staged “southwest US” photographs that created a romanticized view of what was then considered the “Wild West.” The company came to an end in 1994 as they merged with Burlington Northern to form the BNSF railway. 

Celluloid pencil clips were a popular advertising medium at the turn of the 20th century through the 1930s. As pens and pencils were often clipped onto chest pockets, advertising clips were a quick easy way to gain prolific advertising.

Illustration of a red flag with a white shield with black bird in the center on a white background with black text

Prussia, whose flag is pictured here, was fully incorporated into Germany under the Weimar Republic after territorial losses during World War I. After Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Prussia’s legislature and constitution were abolished.

Designed and manufactured by Whitehead & Hoag Co. advertisers like Sweet Caporal cigarettes were able to insert their own backings to this button. Sweet Caporal was a brand of cigarettes created by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company in 1878 and sold to the American Tobacco Company in 1911.  Sweet Caporal was a very popular brand, especially in Canada during the early part of the 20th Century.  In 1908, 50% of cigarette sales in Canada were comprised of the Sweet Caporal brand.