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Stroehmann’s Bread is a product of Stroehmann Bakeries.  The business, created by Fred G. Stroehmann, began as a store in Ohio in 1892, and by 1911 Stroehmann opened a baking plant to begin offering baked goods as part of the services. Other locations soon opened in West Virginia. Three bakeries were sold in 1922, but Stroehmann’s sons opened other bakeries in Pennsylvania. In 1927 the company created a new offering: sliced white bread. 

The Stroehmann family’s German roots are demonstrated in commercials from the 1960s, where an animated “Grandpa Stroehmann” speaks about his bread in German-accented English with a few words peppered in. Today the company is owned by Bimbo Bakeries USA. 

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The Kindergarten Union of New South Wales was first opened in 1895 as a preschool specifically for disadvantaged children. When it was formed, there were very few early childhood education programs in Australia. In 2023, this preschool still exists and has expanded throughout Australia under the name KU, which it began using in 1991. It is still a large public preschool program aimed at inclusion for all learners, and influenced by many different educational approaches in order to fulfill the goal of educating the whole child. 

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Zonite Products Corporation was a manufacturer of hygienic and antiseptic products, including Zonite, Forhan’s Toothpaste, and Larvex. Chartered in 1922, the company manufactured Zonite for over thirty years before changing its name to the Chemway Corporation in 1956. The original Zonite product, developed during World War I, was marketed as a mouthwash, first aid ointment, deodorant, and more. As of 2023, the Mary Couts Burnett Library at Texas Christian University houses a collection of materials related to the Zonite Corporation in its archives and special collections. 

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“Paddy” is a song written by T.C. Bennet, also known as Theron C. Bennett, and published in 1906 by Victor Kremer Co. in New York. The song was composed for piano and voice and features lyrics centered on an Irish railway worker. The term “Paddy” comes from a corruption of the common Irish boy’s name Patrick and is an outdated slang term for an Irish man, now considered offensive. 

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The Aged, Sick, and Infirm Appeal, now known as St. Basil's Homes, is a Greek Orthodox nonprofit charity located in New South Wales, Australia. The organization was founded by Sister Mary Dorothea Flynn, a former Catholic nun, in 1954. The charity’s mission is to care and provide quality resources for the elderly. After leaving the Catholic Church, Sister Mary Dorothea Flynn aspired to open a home to fulfill her mission of starting a charitable cause. However, she faced financial setbacks and needed assistance to avoid selling her property. The Greek Orthodox Church contributed financial support and partnered with Sister Mary, becoming an established charity with a dedicated board. Today, the charity continues to serve the elderly community, housing 375 residents and offering a designated dementia wing, improving the lives of over 800 individuals.

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The United Protestant Association (UPA) was founded in Australia in 1940 during a time of division between Protestants and Roman Catholics by Thomas August, who began his work by providing homes for Protestant families and establishing care facilities for the elderly. August retired in 1962, and the UPA is now more focused on elderly care guided by Christian values. The UPA provides different types of care that allow older adults to maintain independence in the comfort and familiarity of their own homes or in assisted living. This button is a “testament to the past” of the UPA and “serves as a reminder of its impact” throughout history.

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The Sydney Rescue Work Society was established in 1890 and founded by George Edward Ardill, a printer and Gospel preacher. The Rescue Work Society was a non-denominational organization, founded on New Testament principles, and advocated for the reform of alcoholics and sex workers, and the protection of infants, women, and girls. The organization grew rapidly, and by 1911, it managed a variety of agencies including the South Sydney Women’s Hospital, Bethesda Home for Waiting Mothers, a training school for midwifery nurses, an adoption agency, and several homes for women, children, and the needy. These institutions were funded through the operation of a commercial laundry and the midwife training fees. 

Another way that the organization raised money to fund its operations was by organizing fundraising appeals and holding “button days” to sell pinback buttons and badges. Button days would be held all over Sydney and in neighboring towns, often at railway stations, and buttons just like this one valued at 1/-, 2/-, or 3/- were sold to raise money for specific organizations within the Rescue Work Society umbrella. 

** /- is the sign for British Shilling 

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The Sydney Rescue Society, formed in 1890, was a philanthropic, non-denominational organization that ran refuges and homes for women and children in Sydney and its surrounding suburbs. The society formed eight years after the founder, G.E. Ardill, opened a Women’s Refuge  called 'Home of Hope for Friendless and Fallen Women’. The society was founded on the principles of the New Testament and campaigned for temperance, the reform of alcoholics and prostitutes, and the protection of infants, women, and girls. While the organization successfully helped many women and children, there was controversy surrounding Adrill’s use of pregnant women for labor in his commercial laundry facility. The profits from the laundry were used to finance Adrill’s other operations. Regardless of this criticism, the society is still in operation today albeit under a new name, Integricare Sydney, and has since identified other missions relevant to modern issues. 

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The United Protestant Association (UPA) of New South Wales was established in 1938 by Thomas and Rosetta Agst in response to the lack of homes available for impoverished Protestant children. Before the Agsts established the UPA, the nearby Roman Catholic Convent had taken in the protestant children. A bitter division had formed between Catholics and Protestants and the Angsts felt the need to open a home specifically for the protestant children. Many of the children were British migrants affected by the war. Between 1950 to 1990, the UPA had housed over 3,000 children in thirteen UPA homes. As of the 1990s, the homes have been converted to aged care facilities as the cost of providing residential care to children had become too much.

The UPA sold buttons, or “Tinnies”, to help raise funds. The UPA offered a variety of colorful designs, Some featuring the faces of children, while others displayed animals and birds.

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In the early 1900s, along with other tobacco companies, Tokio Cigarette issued many 7/8" cartoon pinback buttons displaying comic art by famous cartoonists of the day. They were given out as premiums with a purchase of Tokio Cigarettes.

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was an American cartoonist and inventor who is best known for his cartoon depictions of impossibly complicated machines to accomplish simple mundane tasks. Goldberg is the only person ever to be listed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an adjective.

Goldberg was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, whose Reuben Award for cartoonist of the year is named after him. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948, and in 1995 was honored with a commemorative stamp as part of the "Comic Strip Classics" series from the U.S. Postal Service.