White and red striped button with red and black text. In the field where it says "DEST CITY" somone has penciled in "PHL."

This is an unaccompanied minor button from US Airways. The buttons were used to identify and assist children who were traveling alone. They contained spaces to write in information about a connecting flight and the destination city. In this case, the child who wore this button was traveling to Philadelphia.

White button with red text and red illustration of shoe box reading "Town & Country Shoes" on the top of the box and "T8CS" on the side. 

Town and Country Shoe Company was an American manufacturer with offices and factories located in Missouri. The brand was popular in the 1960s and was known for their matching shoe and handbag sets. Town and Country Shoes went out of business in the 1980s, but the products are still popular today with vintage clothing collectors.

Red and rainbow text with the Ty logo on a white button. 

Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed animals made by Ty Warner Inc. in 1991. Each toy was stuffed with plastic pellets, which gave them more flexibility. In 1993, nine original Beanie Babies were launched, including a pig, a moose, and a platypus. By the mid-'90s, there was a national craze over Beanie Babies, and Ty intentionally produced limited quantities of the toys. As the toys were systematically retired, people began collecting and selling them; at the height of their popularity, some Beanies were flipped at 1000% on eBay.  Ty stopped producing the toys in 1999, but public pressure caused them to resume their production in 2000.

Red, white and blue button with white and blue text. 

The Ford Drive was a campaign in 1937 and 1938 by the United Automobile Workers union (UAW) to organize workers at the Ford Motor Company.  Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company in 1908 was strongly opposed to unionizing labor.  The Ford Company was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the UAW but due to a strike in 1941 that closed the River Rouge Plant, leaders at the Ford plant were forced to engage in negotiations with union leaders. 

Upset with the turn of events, Ford threatened to break up the company rather than cooperate with union leaders, but his wife Clara told him she would leave if he destroyed the family business.  Ford acquiesced, and overnight the company went from being the one holdout to UAW to agreeing to the most generous contract terms of any auto maker at the time. The Ford Motor Company is one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world, and has been in continuous family control for over 100 years.

Red text on a white button. 

Originally introduced by the Lemp Brewery, Falstaff Beer was just one of several different brands offered by the largest brewery in St. Louis prior to Prohibition. The Lemps chose the Shakespearean character for the name of their new beer due to Sir John Falstaff's reputation as a jolly, fun-loving knight. When the Lemp Brewery closed, William J. Lemp Jr. sold the Falstaff brand to his friend and fellow brewer, Joe Griesedieck in 1920; it would be one of the last business decisions Lemp would make before committing suicide in the family's mansion in 1922. Following the end of Prohibition, the Griesedieck family began to expand their new Falstaff Brewing Company aggressively, competing with Anheuser-Busch Brewery in the decades of the mid-twentieth century. The older, small breweries Falstaff purchased ultimately proved too inefficient to compete with Anheuser-Busch. The four plants in St. Louis, out a total of ten plants in the Falstaff Company, closed one by one, the last in 1977.

The “Thirst Slaker” ad campaign featured a jingle performed by the blues-rock group Cream. Audio of the jingle can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z9tXP5IsRg

White text with red and blue backgrounds with the illustration of a zipper across the button 

Zip Mail is a mailing service that started in 1979 in order to cut the cost of postage to their small consumer base in St. Louis. Still in operation today, Zip Mail is considered to be the First Presort Service Bureau in the Midwest. Presorting mail is a way to save on postage; the service groups mail by ZIP code, bundling mail going to the same area. Presorting saves the U.S. Postal Service money on processing and results in reduced commercial postal prices. Today, Zip Mail has operations in Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis.

White text with white dripping letters on a blue button. 

In the late 1930s, "Tea Keeps You Cool" advertisements appeared in various magazines and newspapers, promoting iced tea as a refreshing beverage. At the same time, iced tea was becoming more common in the United States due to Prohibition, when people were searching for alternatives to alcoholic drinks. 

Black background with a white diamond with red trim. Inside the diamond is black text. 

Salisbury, North Carolina, is the county seat of Rowan County. Like cities and towns across America, it had local boosters to give it a slogan and promote it as, “the town with a future,” “a nice place to raise a family,” and similar. In 1913, the Salisbury Industrial Club decided that “Salisbury’s the Place” and took out newspaper ads to that effect. They even got a 19’ x 34’ sign built in the shape of a diamond that said “Salisbury’s the Place” in flashing lights.

Red button with white text. 

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An illustration of a green and red pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes on a white mirror back button. 

Lucky Strike is a brand of cigarettes that have been around for over 100 years. In 1871, Lucky Strike started as a chewing tobacco produced by the R.A. Patterson Tobacco Company of Virginia. In 1905, the company was acquired by American Tobacco Company, which began producing non-filtered cigarettes under the Lucky Strike brand to compete with the Camel cigarettes. Since 1917, the slogan for the brand has been "It's Toasted" to inform consumers that the tobacco used for the cigarettes is toasted rather than sun-dried like most tobacco.