Blue lines on a white background suggesting an illustration of a three-dimensional cube.

A three-dimensional cube is one of the Platonic solids includes six faces, twelve edges, and eight vertices.

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Black and white photograph of a woman and man in center with a border of geometric in black and green.

Photographic pinback buttons made with celluloid material were extremely popular from the late 1800s to the 1930s.  It was during the 1860s that photography became more available on the commercial market. Humphrey E. Copley of Connecticut sought a patent in 1861 to incorporate photographs onto buttons by utilizing a metal rim to hold the photograph in place. This technology coincided with the Civil War and mourners embraced the option of being able to wear visual representations of their loved ones. John Wesley Hyatt was an American inventor who received a patent for a product named celluloid in 1870. After refinement of the initial product, Hyatt’s celluloid became the first commercially profitable synthetic material. United States patent records reflect the usage of celluloid in making buttons with photographs in the late 1880s. In 1893 Benjamin S. Whitehead acquired a patent for using celluloid over the photo to protect the image. The increased availability of photography coupled with the ability of manufacturers to produce buttons inexpensively allowed the public to create a fashion fad out of the desire to have portable keepsakes.

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Illustration of airplane in front of a cloud on a red background.

The illustration featured here resembles the “Spirit of St. Louis,” an airplane flown by Charles Lindbergh. He is known to be the first aviator to fly across the Atlantic alone. In 1919, Raymond Orteig set up a challenge in finding the first aviator to fly nonstop from New York to Paris for a prize of $25,000. Few tried to accomplish this challenge, but Charles Lindbergh was determined to win. After many months of searching for the right plane, the Ryan Airlines Corporation offered to build for Lindbergh a single-engine plane that would get to Paris. Named the “Spirit of St. Louis,” the plane was designed to have extra fuel tanks, increased wingspan to accommodate the additional weight, and have a maximum range of 4,000 miles, more than enough to reach the destination. Lindbergh made careful considerations in the plane’s weight, believing that less weight would increase fuel efficiency and increase the flying range. On April 28, 1927, the “Spirit of St. Louis” was completed, and on May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off towards Paris from Roosevelt Field. After traveling over 3,600 miles in 33.5 hours, Lindbergh landed safely at Le Bourget Field in Paris.

Illustration of purple bird with blue wings and a turquoise beak next to purple and blue egg on a red background.  Text appears in white speech balloon coming from bird's beak.

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Illustration of woman looking into a hand mirror on a white background with a black scalloped border around edge of button.

Through the 1940s, pocket mirrors were a popular advertising opportunity, given that the back of the mirror would be on display whenever the user pulled it out in public to check their reflection. Today, unusual and inventive mirrors can frequently be sold at auction for hundreds of dollars to collectors.

This art deco illustration is part of a more risque category of pocket mirror, metamorphic, that creates a different image when held upside down. The primary view is a woman putting on makeup in a mirror, while the inverted view is a woman's legs.

Founder of Busy Beaver, Christen Carter, cited this button as one of her favorites in an interview with McSweeney's.

Abstract illustration of black, white and yellow circles, a thin green line and small pairs of dots on purple and white background.

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Abstract design of blue and light blue irregular crisscrossed lines over a background of blue, red, pink, green, white and orange parallel lines.

This is a hand painted button by an unknown artist found in a closet in Wicker Park, Chicago. 

Painted image incorporating embossed multi-colored rectangular pieces on a gray background.

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Star-shaped geometric design of orange diamonds and blue pentagons on a white background.

Bernard Kirschenbaum (1924-2016) was a student of Cornell University’s Architecture program and later a graduate from the Chicago Institute of Design. During his time in Chicago, he attended a lecture by architect Buckminster Fuller, the revolutionary mind behind the geodesic dome. After years of personal research sparked by that lecture, Kirschenbaum built the first residential geodesic dome in 1958 in Connecticut for a fellow artist and his future wife.

Kirschenbaum continued with art. The first of many art shows was a collaboration with Boston artist Tamara Melcher. Kirschenbaum designed a poster with a blue and orange geodesic pattern for this collaborative art show which was on exhibit at the Park Place Gallery in New York from December 1966 to January 1967.

Comic illustration of rotund, smiling, purple character walking with one resting on stomach while licking their lips.

Mr Greedy comes from a series of children's book titled "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" by Roger Hargreaves, a British author and illustrator. Mr. Greedy appears in his own story where he learns a valuable lesson about the consequences of being too greedy.  The Mr. Men series that Mr. Greedy is part of began in 1971. As of 2015, there were 85 Mr. Men and Little Miss characters that have been created by Roger Hargreaves and his son (following Roger's passing in 1988). The books have become very popular, selling over 100 million copies worldwide.