White hardened foam

This button was made by Joel Carter as a present to co-curator Christen Carter. 

Bluce text printed on yellow sponge glued to white pin. 

This button is advertising Uromatic plastic containers for Baxter Healthcare Corporation. The button's innovative squeezable yellow sponge surface is similar to Uromatic pliable plastic containers which contain urologic irrigation solutions. 

Photograph of troll doll with green hair and a purple shirt on a white background.

Troll dolls were originally created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam. Dam could not afford a Christmas gift for his young daughter Lila and carved the doll from his imagination. They became one of the United States' biggest toy fads in the early 1960s. They became fads again in brief periods from the 1970s through the 1990s and were copied by several manufacturers under different names. During the 1990s several video games and a video show based on troll dolls were created. In 2003 the Dam company restored their United States copyrights, stopping unlicensed production. In 2005 the brand was modernized under the name Trollz, but it failed in the marketplace.

Lenticular image alternating between white text on black background and black text on white background along with blue, pink, and green pinwheels. 

“Think big” is used as a term to encourage someone to think more ambitiously or grand. 

Dimensional Research is a market research company in Burlingame, California. Their focus is to help companies and their products to launch. They have had success with providing services to HP, Dell, Equinix, and others.

Compass, outlined in red, nestled between red and black text over yellowed background. 

This is an advertisement button made for Earle A. Mann, the Chicago representative for Standard Brake Shoe & Foundry Co. It is unclear when the company was founded, but there is evidence of it being in operation as early as 1915. It may have been a supplier of iron and steel castings for railway cars on the Frisco (St. Louis-San Francisco) line between the 1920s and 30s. 

White text over the image of a yellow and black record featuring three human figures in the center. 

Third Man Records is an independent record label founded by Jack White in Detroit, Michigan, in 2001. Third Man established its first physical location—a combination record store, performance venue, and headquarters for the label—in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2009. On March 9, 2011, Third Man Records announced its newest creation, the Third Man Rolling Record Store. The store, a yellow step van outfitted with a sound system and Third Man Records inventory, was built by C Cook Enterprises in Erlanger, Kentucky. It made its first appearance in Austin, Texas, at SXSW 2011. Third Man has since brought the mobile store to concerts, festivals, and other events with anywhere from weeks to only a few hours notice

This button was silk screened onto a rubber substrate.

This button was manufactured by the Busy Beaver Button Co.

Compass nestled between the silhouette of a cowboy on a horse and blue text over yellowed background.

This button/compass comes from a 1920s pair of boys “rodeo boots.” They were advertised in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in December 1927 as boots “with a compass in the pocket.” They were described as follows: “The compass is only one of the attractions of Rodeo Boots-those ‘Western’ kinds of high-top Boots that boys can wear in all kinds of weather. Moccasin vamps, brass eyelets, big laces, and sturdy but flexible leather soles.” The boots sold for $5.50 in sizes 12-13.5 and $6.50 in sizes 1-6.

Though the boots had patch pocket on the side for the compass, ironically the button/compass says to not keep the compass in the boot pocket.

Illustration of an angry elephant with light-up eyes over pink background.

Please contact us if you have more information.

A dog looks into a victrola above yellow, red, white, and black text over black and gold background. 

Victor and Victrola were the brand names for phonographs made by the Victor Talking Machine of Camden, New Jersey from 1901 through 1929. The RCA Corporation bought Victor in late 1929, and they continued to use the Victor and Victrola names and logos on their products well into the 1970s, though they were not actually phonographs. RCA Victrola was a radio and was also used to reissue classical recordings of operas.

“His Master’s Voice”, or HMV, was coined in 1899 as the title of a Francis Barraud painting of the dog, Nipper, listening to the recorded voice of his owner on a phonograph. The American rights to the picture were acquired by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901, and the image has been used by RCA ever since. Some ads even told customers to “Look for the dog."

Gold and black text over yellowed background. 

This promotional button advertises the Whitehead & Hoag Company.  This company was started by Benjamin S. Whitehead and Chester R. Hoag in 1892. It was to later become one of the largest advertising novelties manufacturers, and the company was the largest button manufacturer. Interestingly, the company would pay children who lived around their factory to place pins and paper in the back of buttons, since the machines lacked the capacity to do so. The company accepted button orders from groups like the Socialists, the Communists, among others. In WWII, they halted regular button production and transitioned into producing identification buttons. They did eventually return to producing buttons sometime after WWII ended. The company was later sold to the Bastian Brothers and the company’s original name was retired in 1965.

WHITEHEAD & HOAG COMPANY HISTORY. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tedhake.com/viewuserdefinedpage.aspx?pn=whco