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The 19th and early 20th centuries were a golden age of boosterism where cities and towns across America promoted themselves as the next big interest, a town with a future, or the new cultural capital of the world. Often, boosters had ties to local real estate interests. “The Youngest Great City of the World” was applied to San Francisco in 1879, Brooklyn in 1883, Tokyo Japan in 1888, but it really started being applied to Chicago in the build up to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Chicago seems to have kept the unofficial title of “The World’s Youngest Great City” until at least 1919, when it was used in relation to Gary Krist’s book, City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago.

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The Chicago Skyline is often ranked as the tallest and one of the most magnificent skylines in the world. It has three of America's five tallest buildings. The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) was once the tallest building in the world and is the second tallest building in the United States. The formation of the Skyline began after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 which left most of the downtown area destroyed and made it possible to start anew. The Mather Tower, Tribune Tower, and the Chicago Board of Trade, which still exist today, were built during the boom of the 1920s. The second wave of construction happened during the 60s and 70s with additions such as the Sears Tower, the Aon Center, and the John Hancock Center. The third wave is happening currently and includes the Trump Tower, the third tallest building in United States. 

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Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area. The Sears Tower, located in Chicago, was completed in 1973 and has 108 stories. At the time of its completion the Sears Tower held the title of tallest building in the world and held the title for 25 years. The Sears Tower is now the second tallest building in the United States and the 12th tallest in the world. The building is one of Chicago’s most popular tourist destinations and has more than a million visitors each year. In 1974, an observation deck called the Skydeck was opened where tourists can feel the building sway, see views of the city, and on a clear day can even see as far as the plains of Illinois and across Lake Michigan to Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. The building was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009 by the Willis Group as part of its lease on a portion of the tower's space, however, the building is still often referred to as the Sears Tower.

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Between 1978 and 1983, Schlitz Brewing Company sponsored Chicagofest, a summer music festival that took place in the Chicago, Illinois. Performers over the years included The Blues Brothers, Muddy Waters, Frank Sinatra, Cheap Trick, and The Commodores.

Schlitz Brewing Company was a Milwaukee, Wisconsin brewery established in the late 1800s by Joseph Schlitz after he acquired the company from August Krug. They were known for making lagers, but they also made a malt liquor. In 1871, the brewery was coined “The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous” after sending barrels of beer to the Chicago during the Great Chicago Fire. About 100 years later, Schlitz became the largest brewery in the world.

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Chicago has a long history as one of the convention capitals of the United States, and has played host to many large-scale political and professional conventions including the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the 2012 NATO Summit. The city houses McCormick Place, which is the largest convention center in North America. McCormick Place, the city's first permanent convention and exposition center, opened in 1960 and was then rebuilt and expanded after a fire destroyed the original building in 1967. The Chicago Convention Bureau, the organization that distributed this button, is now housed under Choose Chicago, a tourism marketing organization launched in 2012 by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The mission of Choose Chicago is to bring both tourists and business professionals to Chicago, in an effort to boost the city’s economy and the community at-large.

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This button shows the municipal flag of the City of Chicago. The official flag was originally adopted in 1917 and amended in 1933 and 1939 when two additional stars were added. The cyan and white bars represent geographical features of the city: the cyan stripes for Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River; the top, middle, and bottom white bars for the North, West, and South Sides, respectively. The four red, six-pointed stars symbolize four historically significant events in the city's history: 1. Fort Dearborn and the massacre of settlers and destruction that took place there in 1812; 2. the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; 3. the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893; and 4. the Century of Progress Exposition of 1933-34. Each of the star's six points represents a unique value, attribute, or historical fact about the city as well. 

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The Chicago Cubs are a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. Founded in 1876 as the Chicago White Stockings, the team was renamed in 1903. The Cubs were a founding member of the National League, and now play in the National League Central Division. The team is affectionally known as “The Cubbies” or “North Siders” and play their home games at Chicago’s historic Wrigley Field. They have a loyal fan base and—regardless of decades of mixed success—are one of the most popular franchises in baseball. In 2016, the Chicago Cubs went on to break a 108-year losing streak curse with their first World Series championship since 1908. 

The logo that is represented on this button has been the Cubs' logo since 1979 and the silhouette in the background is of the Chicago skyline—a cityscape often ranked as the tallest and most magnificent skylines in the world. It has three of America's five tallest buildings. 

Read more about the History of Cubs Buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

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Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Capone was a low-ranking Five Points Gang member. Capone moved to Chicago where he became a bodyguard for Johnny Torrio, boss of the Chicago Outfit Gang. After Torrio retired, Capone became the new boss. He quickly expanded the gang’s bootlegging business during the Prohibition Era. The gang’s violence contributed to Capone being “Public Enemy No. 1” to the FBI. Eventually, Capone was sentenced to prison for 11 years for tax evasion, a strategy used by the government in order to prosecute high-ranking gang members. Capone was released after 8 years; he died shortly after being released from cardiac arrest.

This button was manufactured by the Busy Beaver Button Co.