Blue background with a white shield with red outline and a white silhouette of a dog above it. There is blue text inside the white shield.

In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, Cleveland-based radio station WTAM hosted a program called Uncle Henry’s Dog Club.  This button suggests that the program supported the Cleveland Animal Protective League and encouraged young listeners to do the same.  Incorporated in 1913, the Cleveland Animal Protective League is an independent, nonprofit humane society.  Even today, the organization continues to partner with a local radio station (Q104) in order to promote its cause.  

Three illustrations of holly leaves across the top of the button with a white semi circle underneath with green text and white text on an overall red background under the semi circle. There is a white oval at the bottom with green text in it.

This button would have been given to a Second National Bank Christmas Club member. The Christmas Club is a savings program that allows bank members to deposit a set amount of money every week into a special savings account, and receive the money back at the end of the year for Christmas shopping. There have been a variety of Second National Banks and the name continues to be used today. The first Christmas Clubs were established in the early 20th century. 

An illustration of a frowning older man with round glasses and a furrowed brow. He is balding. His ears and nose are pink and his face is a peach color. The traces of hair are grey and the glasses are black.

This button was designed by Chris Ware. He is a comic book artist and cartoonist. His most popular works include graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and Building Stories, and the comic book series Acme Novelty Library. The characters in his work are often depressed, melancholy, in despair, or facing some type of adversity.

Ware is one of the prominent artists who partners with Busy Beaver to create a special line of buttons. This button is part of the Button-O-Matic artist series in 2003 produced by Busy Beaver Button Company.

An illustration of a woman with a concerned looking face and arched eyebrows. Her face is peach in color, and her nose and mouth are pink. Her eyes and hair are black.

This button was designed by Chris Ware. He is a comic book artist and cartoonist. His most popular works include graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and Building Stories, and the comic book series Acme Novelty Library. The characters in his work are often depressed, melancholy, in despair, or facing some type of adversity.

Ware is one of the prominent artists who partners with Busy Beaver to create a special line of buttons. The image on the button is exemplary of his artistic style. This button is part of the Button-O-Matic artist series in 2003 produced by Busy Beaver Button Company.

There are pink waves in the white background of the button. The words are blue, and the word "DONZI" is surrounded by a blue border. There are two small symbols on the left surrounded by a blue border. The top symbol is of a shield with a crest, and the symbol below is of a lion above a dolphin. The letters "OMC" are above both of the symbols.

The Chris-Craft Company began in 1910 when Christopher Columbus Smith, along with his brother Hank, began building standardized runabout boats in the Point de Chene area of Michigan. In 1927, Chris’s son, Jay Smith, became the President and General Manager of the company, which is now recognized as the world’s largest builder of Mahogany recreational powerboats. Although the depression effected the company’s boat production, by the time World War II began, Chris-Craft was building vessels for the United States Navy and Army. After the end of the war, Chris-Craft began making powerboats again with the first fiberglass boat being manufactured in 1955. In the 1980s, Chris-Craft came into the market of speedboats and their boats made appearances on television programs including Miami Vice. The company continues to create high quality boats that customers appreciate. Donzi was acquired by Jack Staples and then Chris-Craft President, Dick Genth, in 1985 to increase the production of the low-profile extremely fast fiberglass boat. In 2014, the company had its 140-year anniversary.

Brown text on an ivory background.

Popular in 1948, Swift’s ice cream was featured in many newspapers across the country. These newspapers featured home economist Martha Logan who wrote up delicious sounding recipes featuring different flavors of Swift’s ice cream. Ms. Logan was the head of the Home Economics Department for Swift and Company in Chicago, and she worked for the company by developing, testing, and promoting new products. 

Some of the other Swift’s ice cream flavors include: caramel nut fudge, candy cane, maple chocolate almond, and party peach. Swift’s Mar-bel flavors combined two different flavors together, and are what is commonly known as “marbled” ice cream. The term “marbled” ice cream refers to marble stone. The thin streaks of color in marble interwoven with one main color of stone is reflected in the ice cream with one main flavor and thin streaks of a second flavor interwoven throughout. Swift’s chocolate mar-bel ice cream combined vanilla and chocolate flavors.

Illustration of a person's head with a nose that looks like a vacuum cleaner head, with dark purple text above and below on a lighter purple background.

The 1965 series of LEAF "Fink Buttons" were 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."

Blue illustration of a bear cub with red text above and below and an outer blue ring around the button on a white background.

The Chicago Junior Booster Club was created in 1948 and its membership consisted of young boys and girls from the Chicago area. According to an article that ran in the August 1949 issue of Chicago Cubs News, the Chicago Junior Booster Club was “the first organization of its type in baseball, the Cub Booster Club [had] been praised widely in baseball circles and among youth-serving organizations all over the United States.” (p. 3). The Cub Booster Club distributed 100,000 free admissions to the youth of Chicago for Cubs games at Wrigley Field in 1949. The Chicago youth had to be eligible for free admission based on merit. Those that qualified based on merit “were given a ticket to any Cub ball game scheduled during the summer vacation, and were also awarded a Booster club membership button.” The Booster Club was made possible through the sponsorship of the Cubs.

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

Black text on a bright pinkish orange background with a small black star in the middle of the button.

The Chautauqua Sports Club was essentially founded in the late 1930s when the Chautauqua Yacht Club and Horseshoe Club merged. When the club opened there were indoor and outdoor activities to participate in. Some of the indoor activities included pool, billiards, and bridge. Although the club was initially only open to men they eventually admitted women, turning the club into a busy social center. Shuffleboard was a very popular pastime at the club. The club, as you can see from the undated postcard that is attached, that the sports club not only served as a place of recreation, but was also a very important location for socializing. As membership appears to have been for a “half day, day, week, month or season” one could assume that this button served as admittance to the club for one week in July 1938.

An image of a black and white eyeball with the words written in red on the black pupil. The background is red.

CBS has been a major media outlet since its inception as a radio network in 1927. By the 1950s, CBS had captured the broadcasting spotlight when it premiered "I Love Lucy" and debuted the first documentary series "See It Now," hosted by Edward R. Murrow. CBS President Frank Stanton felt the need to give the network a distinct identity. Therefore, he requested Bill Golden to design a symbol to represent the network, and the Eye was created.

The orange and black eye logo was the original CBS Eye, which debuted in 1951. The creative director of CBS, Bill Golden, was inspired by similar hex symbols he saw drawn on barns as he drove through the Pennsylvania Dutch county. The symbols were meant to ward off evil. The CBS Eye was created with the help of graphic artist Kurt Weihs.