Illustration in fabric of woman's face on entirety of button centered on a paper clover.

Flappers, known for defying social norms, wore buttons on brightly colored garters that held up their non-elastic stockings, offering a sense of freedom compared to the stiff corsets of earlier decades. With sassy phrases or flirty images, the buttons captured the bold, carefree attitude that characterized the flapper lifestyle. These so-called "garter buttons" were often made from fabric-wrapped metal or celluloid and featured clever or suggestive messages. The popular Art Deco style influenced their design, sometimes hiding images that revealed more when turned upside down. Despite their playful purpose, the buttons were often crafted with attention to detail—some included soft fabrics or tiny ribbons that echoed flapper headbands, showing the care put into even the smallest accessories.

A three-leaf clover, or shamrock, traditionally symbolizes the Holy Trinity—comprising the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—in Christianity. St. Patrick famously used this emblem to help the Irish understand this concept. Additionally, it can represent faith, hope, and love, with each leaf signifying one of these virtues. 

Pen and Ink illustration of two turkeys standing in grass near a fence post on a white background.  Blue scalloped border around edge of button.

Bronze Turkeys are named for their metallic bronze plumage. They are the product of cross breeding domestic turkeys brought by European colonists and wild turkeys found in North America. Bronze turkeys are larger and tamer than European turkeys. They became the commercial variety of turkey meat in the early 21^st century. Today Bronze turkeys are not primarily used by turkey industries and are only used for seasonal small scale production.

White silhouetted illustration of person with black hair on a red background.

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Blue field with two circle and one line cutouts exposing red X on a white background.

The 26th Amendment was ratified in 1971, establishing the minimum voting age as 18 for state and federal elections in the United States. Leading up to this momentous event, organizers created buttons, stickers, and other graphics urging voters to “Vote 18” or “Vote Yes 18.” As many slogans claimed "Old enough to fight, Old enough to vote"—highlighting the United States’ Military’s Selective Service or draft age of 18—this button was a call for the voting age to be lowered in tandem. 

Though this may seem like an abstract art design, turn this button to the side and a stylized ‘18’ featuring an ‘X’ in the background is revealed, alluding to the act of voting. This, and similar, images were used regularly by youth voting rights campaigns in the early 1970s, including the Let Us Vote Committee, who are the likely creators of this particular design.

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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