A photograph of five men posing with the lightly clouded sky in the background. The three men in the front are wearing button down shirts that are black, white, and red and black. The two men in the back row are wearing baggy grey blazers. The text is red and stacked on the bottom of the button.

The New Kids on the Block are an American boy band that had greatest success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band is comprised of six members: Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood. The group disbanded in 1994 but was reunited in 2008 and they are continuing to tour and perform even now. The band was signed with Columbia Records and their self-titled debut album was released in April of 1986. Their debut album did not have much success. It wasn’t until their second album’s single “Please Don’t Go Girl” started getting attention in Florida and eventually MTV that the band really started to gain recognition. By the early 1990s the band members were some of the highest paid entertainers, over Michael Jackson and Madonna. The group’s final single to make it on to the Billboard’s Hot 100 was “Dirty Dawg” in 1993. The band broke up soon after. The band reunited in 2008 and continues to tour.

Blue text on a white background. 

"I am neither for nor against apathy" is a quote from the comedian Mort Sahl. The joke is that he is being apathetic about apathy. Mort Sahl is a standup comedian who started at a club called the hungry i in the 1950s. He sees himself as a political satirist in the vein of Mark Twain and he satirized every President after Eisenhower. He said that apathy was one of the biggest problems in the late 1950s, at the end of McCarthyism, because nothing can change if no one takes sides.

Yellow, orange, red, and blue line waves on a beige background. The text is small and black, and it is positioned on the right side of the orange colored wave.

National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems. It was founded in Danbury, Connecticut by Dr. Bernard J. Rothlein on May 27, 1959, when he and seven colleagues left their employment at the semiconductor division of Sperry Rand Corporation. The founding of the new company was followed by Sperry Rand filing a lawsuit against National Semiconductor for patent infringement. On April 4, 2011, Texas Instruments announced that it had agreed to buy National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in cash. The deal made Texas Instruments one of the world's largest makers of analog technology components.

Illustration of Michael Jackson's head (from the 1970's) on a white background.

This design was created as part of the Busy Beaver Button Co.'s Button-O-Matic 2003 series "portraits". It included five buttons by Nathan McKee.

Nathan McKee is a self-taught artist who began drawing as a small child and then went into screen printing and stenciling. His main subjects in his art are basketball players. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, watching the Trail Blazers and was always a huge fan. In his art he enjoys capturing the basketball player’s motions, emotions, and personalities. Another project that he has done include creating one-of-a-kind buttons, pen and ink drawings of hip-hop artists. The three-button collection of Michael Jackson buttons includes Michael throughout the decades, 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s. Other artists that Nathan has depicted on buttons include Salt-N-Pepa, Run-DMC, 2Pac and Biggie, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys to name a few. 

An illustration of a tulip sits between black text on a yellowed background. 

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Blue text on a white background with a red number in the center.

The Mt. Oliver Harris Theatre was located at 407 Brownsville Road in Mount Oliver, Pennsylvania.  On Saturday afternoons, the theater hosted its “Kiddie Club.” Its showings of cartoons and Western movies on Saturdays were popular amongst local children, who would often spend hours at the theater.  The Mt. Oliver Harris Theater closed on April 14, 1983 with a showing of E.T.  

Illustration of the Beatrix Potter character Mrs. Tiggy-winkle (a hedgehog wearing a pink dress and a white apron, holding an iron) in an interior setting.  

Mrs. Tiggy Winkle is a children's book character that was first featured in Beatrix Potter's 1905 The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle. This illustration of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle appears near the beginning of the book. 

The tale of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle is about a young girl named Lucie. Lucie having lost some handkerchiefs and a pinafore goes looking for them. She stumbles across some linen near a tree and eventually comes to a door. Behind the door she finds a stout hedgehog dressed as a human who launders all sorts of textiles. After becoming friendly and having tea, the pair heads back down the path Lucie came up. When Lucie turns to thank Mrs. Tiggy Winkle she finds but a small normal unclothed hedgehog. The narrators suggests that perhaps Lucie had only dreamed it though the narrators hints at knowing Mrs. Tiggy Winkle and reaffirms the fact that Lucie has her linens back - and clean.

The story itself is thought to have first been written in 1902 and is a fictionalized tale of a young girl named Lucie Carr. Mrs. Tiggy Winkle herself was actually the name of Potter's pet hedgehog and the character was a combination of her beloved pet and a washwoman named Kitty McDonald. The character and story has been popular since it was first published from Frederick Warne & Co - having been the basis for a slew of merchandise and adaptations

Beatrix Potter is best known for her children's books - most of which depict a friendly anthropomorphic animal. In her private education in Victorian England, Potter was taught heavily in science and became very fond of taxonomy, creating a number of fungal illustrations. These scientific illustrations provided her with a basis of color and realism found in the illustrations of her stories. Although in her time her research was largely disregarded, re-readings have allowed her work to become considered serious research that is still used as a reference today. Potter was born in 1866 and lived 77 years, dying of illness in 1943. She would continue to write and illustrate throughout her life and in her later years became very interested in sheep farming and 'showing'

Blue text curving around edge of button with date in the middle, on white background.

The Monarch Club was a national organization with branches in towns across the United States. This button commemorated the National Monarch Club convention of 1932 held in Syracuse, New York. Every year a vote would take place to determine the location of the next convention. Durham, NC was chosen as the site of the 1933 convention and John Sorg (of Pittsburgh, PA) was re-elected as national president. The previous 1931 national convention took place in Richmond, Virginia.

As a whole the Monarch Club were engaged in civic matters. In 1941, the Monarch Club of Cortland raised funds via a public dance for the local blood bank and the Rochester Monarch Club hosted a steak-roast and G.O.P platform informational session for those interested in 1931.

An image of a black stamped shape on a red background. The text for the exhibit name is white and the museum name is red.

The "Committed to Print" exhibition the Museum of Modern Art was on view from January 31-April 19, 1988. This exhibit was somewhat groundbreaking as it was the first to look at the social and political themes that were present in 1960s American print art. All of the art that was part of this exhibit was in the fine art tradition as opposed to the graphic arts. Deborah Wye, associate curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, mounted the exhibit. The exhibit was comprised of 144 prints and 36 artists books. The pieces were arranged for this exhibition based on theme categories. Some of the featured themes were gender, nuclear power and ecology, and the American Dream. The press release for this exhibit explains that “most of the artists represented in the exhibition communicate[d] their concerns in the formal language of modernism.” (pg. 3). The various mediums that were employed, included silkscreen, block printing, etching, lithography, and others. 

Red illustration of a winged roller skate with red text above and below on a gold background.

The Mineola Skating Rink was located in Mineola, New York.  Earl and Inez Van Horn, alongside their business partner Harry Brickmeyer, opened up the rink in 1934.  Before opening the rink, the Van Horns had toured Europe as a skate dancing team.  Having once been a cattle exhibition barn, the building that housed the rink received several improvements over the years.  Some such improvements included a silver ceiling and walls covered in blue silk.  The rink hosted more than 60 skating clubs, with colorful names such as the Bayside Dragons, Blue Jackets, Westbury Flashes, and the Zippy Zephyrs.  By 1948, the Mineola Skating Rink served upwards of 90,000 skaters.  However, interest in skating eventually faded.  In 1960, the rink was torn down and the space now serves as a municipal parking lot.