Pink text encircled by a red border on a black background. 

"Fer sure, fer sure" is a typical "Valspeak" phrase from the 1980s. Other phrases include, "bag your face," "grody," and "barf me out." 

"Fer sure, fer sure" are lyrics from Valley Girl by Frank Zappa and his daughter, Moon Unit Zappa. The song was released as a single off of the 1982 album, Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch. 

Illustration of a dog in the center with red uppercase text across the top edge, black text across the bottom edge and red uppercase text across the bottom of the dog.

Unique to Indiana, the Pet and Hobby Club was created by the Women’s Department of the Indiana Farm Bureau.  With membership open to children 10 and under, the program included education about health and safety on the farm as well as home economics.  As the meetings for the Pet and Hobby Club took place at the same time as the IFB county meetings, the program also sought to encourage the attendance of young farming couples with children.  In 1995, the program was renamed “Little Farmers.”  

Two black footprints surrounded by black text. The background is yellow.

Located in Evanston, Illinois, the Evanston Library has three locations: the Main Library, the North Branch and the Chicago Avenue Branch and serves a population of over 73,000.  Patrons also have access to the catalogs of 22 other public libraries associated with the Cooperative Computer Services (CCS) consortium.  The Evanston Library Association was founded in 1870 and opened its headquarters on the 2^nd floor at 613 Davis Street in 1871.

An image of a credit card and a stack of papers, both with the word "entertainment" written across them, is on the center. There is a blue diamond shaped symbol on the center of the papers. Blue text arches above and below the image as a border. The papers are white and background of the button is gray.

The company Entertainment was founded in 1962. Entertainment provides a platform for companies around North America to advertise and market their products through a membership-based discount and coupon program. For a fee, consumers can take advantage of a plethora of savings. Entertainment also has a long-standing fundraising program.

Black text is nestled in a black illustration of flames on an orange background. 

This button was made by Hip Products, a Chicago-based printing company in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They produced many black light posters that are today considered collectibles.

White text on a brown background.

English Toffee Ice Cream was invented by Steve Herrell, an ice cream shop proprietor, in 1973. The process of making English Toffee Ice Cream consists of grinding up a Heath toffee-flavored candy bar and mixing it in with other flavors of ice cream, such as chocolate .The success of the flavor helped transform Steve's from a local Massachusetts ice cream parlor into a successful franchise. The flavor is now available from various ice cream brands such as Breyer's and Ben & Jerry's.

Photograph of a squinting older gentleman in the center of the button with blue text. Red logos on a white background.

A 1987 Electrohome advertising campaign used imagery of people squinting to sell the Electrohome EDP-58XL Monochrome Computer Projection System. The ads promised it was a "real eye-opener" because of its higher resolution and other features that would make it easier to see what was being projected.

Red text on a white background. 

In response to the cookie-cutter, conformist lifestyle of the 1950s, an emerging generation of post-war youth decided to turn American culture on its head. The 1960s and 1970s saw the counterculture unfold as new music, films, and recreational drugs helped shape the new era. Peace-loving hippies and the creative beats of The Beatles were all the rage at this time and helped fuel the counterculture movement. People were even famously urged to “turn on, tune in, and drop out” by psychologist Timothy Leary.

In addition to the hippie lifestyle, the counterculture was also characterized by the sexual revolution. Old behavioral codes related to sexuality saw a drastic change-up as more people were accepting of contraception, abortion, and public nudity. Though the United States generally condemns public nudity today, it fit the prevailing attitude of the 1960s that called for sexual liberation.

Humorous buttons related to free love and a host of other themes were manufactured by the Emress Specialty Company in the 1960s. The business was started a decade prior by New Yorker Emanuel “Manny” Ress in Atlantic City with the hopes of one day pinning his buttons on politicians.

An illustration of the skeletons of a dinosaur walking behind a man facing the right. Both figures are dressed as white bed sheet ghosts. The skeletons are grey, and the dinosaur's tail and the feet of both figures are black. The background is grey.

Ghost Buddies is an illustration by Massachusetts based artist Dan McCarthy.  McCarthy is both a visual artist (working in design, screen printing, drawing, and painting) and a musician.

Red rounded cornered triangle with white text inside, white text over top and a white border on a blue background with white text across the top.

The Davidson’s Baking Company was founded in 1914 by Eugene F. Davidson and was one of the largest baking companies in the Northwest. The company’s first store was located in Portland, Oregon and their main product was “Liberty Bread” which was comprised of cornmeal, rye, rice, bran, whole wheat and white flour. The bread was comprised of so many ingredients because of the war and the conservation of wheat. This bread would later be known as Davidson’s Sunbeam Bread. The company marketed their bread with Little Miss Sunbeam and a corresponding national contest in which young girls would compete to locally represent the company. In 1964 the company was producing about six or seven loaves of bread per Oregonian (12.5 million loaves per year). The biggest competition for the Davidson’s Bakery was the other family owned Franz Bakery, inventor of the modern day hamburger bun.

Battistella, E. Davidson Baking Company (Sunbeam Bakery). The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: http://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/entry/view/davidson_baking_company_sunbeam_bakery_/