White text and "swoosh" symbol on an orange background

Nike, Inc. started as Blue Ribbon Sports on January 25, 1964, founded by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. Bill Bowerman was the track coach at University of Oregon and Philip Knight was a track athlete. The company’s name eventually changed to Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, on May 30, 1971. Shortly after the company’s name change, the highly recognizable “swoosh” symbol, designed by Carolyn Daivdson, was launched and patented. The company is based in Beaverton, Oregon, and employs over 44,000 people throughout the world. Although the company specialized in track shoes when it was first founded, they now manufacture a variety of athletic clothing and equipment. Nike has sponsored numerous athletes throughout the years, but also has been endorsed by certain athletes. The first endorser of Nike products was the famous distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who was coached by Bowerman. Furthermore, the date that is found on this button, 1984, corresponds with the signing of Michael Jordan as a promoter of Nike products. Michael Jordan was a very popular element to the advertising of Nike commercials, like this example from 1987 found here.

Gold ring around outer edge of button with text the same blue as the overall background color blue and gold text in the center.

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Illustration of a man with an open mouth coming out of the top of his head, a long large nose and a skinny long neck on a green background with black text above and below. 

This button is from the 1965 series of LEAF "Fink Buttons" illustrated by popular Mid-Century artist Basil Wolverton. Perhaps best known for his work at MAD Magazine, Basil Wolverton (July 9, 1909 – December 31, 1978) was an American cartoonist and illustrator famous for his humorously grotesque drawings. Wolverton worked in the "Golden Age" of comic books doing features like "Powerhouse Pepper" and "Spacehawk" in the 1940s. A 2009 New York Times article states that Wolverton’s drawings embodied the “sick-and-proud humor” of MAD magazine and were considered a “virtuoso exercise in bad taste, made all the weirder for being so meticulously executed."

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'