Black text and an illustration of a smiley face on a bright orange background

The classic yellow smiley face is comprised of a yellow circle, two black dots for eyes, and a black arc ending in serifs for a mouth. It was designed in 1963 by commercial artist, Harvey Ross Ball. Ball was commissioned by The State Mutual Life Insurance Company to create a happy face to raise the morale of their employees. His version was created in 10 minutes. The design was printed onto more than 50 million buttons. Neither Ball nor the company copyrighted this smiley, so it was continually used by other businesses in their promotions.
The design and concept is quite simple and was definitely used before Ball’s 1963 version. However, his has become the most iconic. Variations have been used for advertising campaigns and in popular culture ever since.

“Hi! We’re glad you’re here” is a phrase that is used as a greeting by the proprietor of an establishment when guests, members, or customers enter the room.

White button with red smiley face person and yellow text. 

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Yellow button with black text and the image of an orange smiling sun in the middle. 

The Smiling Sun is the international symbol of the anti-nuclear power movement.  It was designed by anti-nuclear activists, Anne Lund and Soren Lisberg, for Denmark's OOA (Organization for Information on Atomic Energy) in 1975. Smiling Sun buttons were originally passed out at the May 1st celebration in Arhus Denmark, but soon were used by anti-nuclear activists around the world, with the words "Nuclear Power? No Thanks" translated into over 40 languages. This message was designed to be polite and friendly, but firm, and to encourage dialog.  The sun was chosen as a symbol of hope because it sustains life on earth. The button is yellow because shops in Denmark use black letters on a yellow background for their signs, so Lund and Soren felt it was a welcoming color. 

White square button with reflective black, green and yellow striped circle in the middle. White text and the image of a warrior with a spear and sheild. 

The African National Congress (ANC) is a South African political party which opposed Apartheid. Since Nelson Mandela won the 1994 Presidential election, they have dominated South African politics. This button is in the party's colors. Black represents native South Africans, green represents the land, and gold represents the minerals that make up South Africa's wealth. 

Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) was the military wing of the ANC. They were formed after the 1960 Sharpseville Massacre killed 69 anti-Apartheid protesters. Umkhonto we Sizwe used violence and terrorism to convince the government of South Africa to end Apartheid. Nelson Mandela explained the creation of the Umkhonto we Sizwe as a last resort when peaceful protest was met with violence. He stressed that the goal was still a unified South Africa with freedom for people of all races. The warrior holding a spear and shield was the symbol of this militant wing of the ANC and represents the African warriors who resisted colonial rule.

Navy blue button with white text. 

Congressman Sidney Yates ran for Senate in 1962 for the State of Illinois. He lost by a narrow margin to Republican Everett Dickerson, even though President Kennedy campaigned for him. He served in the House of Representatives from 1949-1963 and 1965-1999, making him one of the longest serving U.S. Congressmen. Yates was an outspoken supporter of the arts and the state of Israel and an early opponent of age discrimination.

Black text on an orange button.

Ronald Reagan was an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild starting in 1947. In the 1960s he became a conservative Republican politician. He served as Governor of California from 1967-1975 and was elected president in 1980. This anti-Reagan button comes from the 1970s when Reagan was Governor of California. The slogan "Ronald Reagan is a Lesbian" comes from a sign used in the play Hair, which debuted on Broadway in 1968. This sign was either used in protest scenes or hung on the set with other signs to show the political and cultural turmoil of the 1960s. Hair showed the hippie and counterculture movements, which Reagan was critical of. U.C. Berkeley was an early center of the counterculture and protest movements portrayed in Hair, and Reagan was especially critical of the protest on campus in the late 1960s, when he was Governor of California.  

Black text on a yellow button.

Eugene McCarthy was a U.S. Congressman and Senator who ran for president against President Johnson in the 1968 race. He was encouraged to run by liberal antiwar activists looking for a peace candidate to run against Johnson. McCarthy had supported the Vietnam war until 1966, but agreed to run for President on a platform to end the war. His strong showing in early primaries encouraged Johnson to drop out of the race and Robert Kennedy to run. He was supported early on by many young people and antiwar activists, many of whom later left to join the Kennedy campaign. McCarthy lost to Vice President Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic Primary.  

Emerald green button with lime green text.

In the 1972 Illinois Democratic Primary, voters were required to vote for Illinois delegates, rather than for candidates. The delegates would then vote based on their constituents' preferences. However, many argued that this system (as well as influence on the part of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley who ran the Chicago political machine) did create a diverse selection of delegates. The 1972 Democratic Convention ended in controversy when delegates who had elected to support Senator George McGovern for the presidency were denied a vote. This was due to more traditional members of the party feeling that McGovern, who ran his grassroots campaign on a platform of ending the Vietnam War, did not represent the spirit of the Democratic Party. This eventually ended in the Supreme Court case of Cousins v. Wigoda, in which the Court ruled that the party had the right to refuse delegates on the grounds of the Right to Political Association.

Green text under a green pine tree on a yellow button

The Citizens' Party was formed in 1980 as a more liberal alternative to the Democratic Party, led by President Jimmy Carter. Environmental science professor Barry Commoner ran for President that year and his running mate was La Donna Harris, a feminist and Comanche Indian woman married to Democratic Senator Fred Harris. The Citizens Party was remarkably successful for a third party, but won less than 1% of the vote in any state where they were on the ballot. 

Their platform covered a diverse group of left-wing issues including environmentalism and social justice. They wanted to end the use of nuclear power and encourage the use of renewable energy sources over coal and oil. The party also argued that the minimum wage should be raised and workers should be protected in the work place. They also campaigned for more government regulation of corporations, including price controls on necessities, such as food and healthcare. The party argued that government should ensure access to birth control, abortion, and mental health services for all Americans. They wanted to punish criminals with fines based on their wealth rather than imprisonment, to end the death penalty, and address and change the social causes of crime. Their foreign policy called for world peace, disarmament, and human rights all over the world.

In 1984 Sonia Johnson, a radical feminist, ran for President for the Citizens' Party, but did not do as well as Commoner had four years earlier. The party disintegrated over the next four years.

White text on a blue button with two white horizontal lines.