Black border around black text over white background. 

Founded in 1893 by Grant Colfax Tullar and Isaac H. Meredith, the Tullar-Meredith Publishing Company was a successful hymnal and gospel song publisher based in New York City and Chicago that specialized in Sunday school hymns. “Keep Sweet” is the title of a song written by Tullar and Meredith that was printed in the November 1912 issue of “Teachers Magazine”. The song encourages young listeners to “Keep sweet, keep sweet…It matters not what troubles you may meet. Thro’ the sunshine or the rain…All will come out right again…If you’ll only just Keep sweet”. 

Sources
Cottrill, R. (2010, August, 5). Today in 1869 – Grant Tullar born. Retrieved from https://wordwisehymns.com/2010/08/05/today-in-1869-grant-colfax-tullar-born/

Teacher’s Magazine. (1912, November). Keep Sweet. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=XH9JAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA102&lpg=RA1-PA102&dq=tullar-meredith+co+keep+sweet&source=bl&ots=cYiwfYUn2p&sig=83jxBYbpR9I-OIyRO7cCISmXm0s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3yeTUqqPdAhWnjFQKHdc0AOYQ6AEwAnoECGEQAQ#v=onepage&q=tullar-meredith%20co%20keep%20sweet&f=false

Mean-mugging bulldog below yellow sign with red text over blue and green background. 

Topps, a company that is best known for sports memorabilia, produced "Wise Guy" pins during the 1960s that featured  satire/parody for novelty and humor.

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The phrase “Joggers Keep Fast Company” combined with the puffs of smoke and quick-moving lines is a visual pun. A pun is a play on words; it is a humorous, literary device that uses words or phrases that have more than one meaning. Puns can also be words that sound similar and have different meanings. This pun jokes that joggers keep fast company, fast can be slang for promiscuous and flirtatious behavior. Its other meaning is literal that joggers run fast and associate with other fast joggers.

Originally thought of as just a fad, Jogging became popular during the 1970s and 80s. It has been estimated that 25 million Americans took up Jogging during that time. The interest in the new sport created a boom for athletic running shoes and clothing and sparked enthusiasm for races like The Los Angeles Marathon or the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco during the 1980s.

White flag with red and white text encircled by white outline over blue background. 

“It’s high time” is an idiom of unknown origin meaning that it is about the right time for something.  

This button may have been used in the 1960s by Miami Mayor Bob High in his race for Governor of Florida.

Green text sandwiched between two horizontal red stripes over white background. 

Have info on this button? Contact us here.

Joyful, mustachioed man has pies in his eyes above black text over white background. 

George Herriman (1880-1940) was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved to Los Angeles, California with his family as a young child. At seventeen years old, Herriman sold his first illustrations to the Los Angeles Herald. By the turn of the twentieth century, he was published regularly in national magazines and newspapers. Around the same time his illustrations were included on premiums for Hassan Cigarettes, he was inventing his 'Krazy Kat' and 'The Dingbat Family' ('The Family Upstairs') strips. Herriman, also, worked anonymously with other cartoonists, such as Bud Fisher and Tad Dorgan.

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Named after a well-known street in London, Pall Mall is an American brand of cigarettes founded in 1899. It was first marketed to upper-class consumers as a high-end product and later reached its peak in the 1960s when it became the number one cigarette brand in the United States. In 1965, Pall Mall launched its “I’m Particular” campaign that involved distributing red and white buttons with the memorable slogan. Ads were also printed in magazines that read, “If you, too, are particular about taste, you don’t have to wear a button to prove it! Simply smoke Pall Mall.”

Pall Mall cigarettes were author Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite to smoke. He took such a liking to them that he often included the brand in many of his novels. Vonnegut was even quoted to have said that Pall Mall was “a classy way to commit suicide.” They also made an appearance in Stephen King’s 1989 novel The Dark Half.

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Released on July 29, 1980, the Hall & Oates album Voices was the first produced by Daryl Hall and John Oates themselves. The release of the album was accompanied by an ad campaign that included the button seen here. Voices spawned four hit singles, including “How Does it Feel to Be Back,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the top five hit “You Make My Dreams,” and the No. 1 hit, “Kiss on My List.” The album helped Hall & Oates become the best-selling duo in rock history. 

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Blue and Pink octagonal clock centered between red text over white background. 

“I Roll ‘n’ rock around th’ clock” is a reference to the famous song "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets. This song was the first “Rock ‘n’ Roll” song: a song that combined country with rhythm and blues and western swing. The song took some time to rise to fame. When first released by Bill Haley’s personal record label, Sunny Dae, the record label flopped. Billy Haley and his comets kept working on the timing and rhythm until it became the well-known song recognized today. It’s inclusion in the film Blackboard Jungle helped boost it to world fame, and some critics state that this association with the song and youth truancy and deviation in the film was the origin of rock ‘n’ roll’s correlation with rebellious teenage behavior.