White text on a blue background with a white rim.

Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were the Democratic ticket for the 1984 U.S. presidential election. Mondale served as vice president to Jimmy Carter in the prior administration, and Ferraro was Representative for the state of New York. The two ran in opposition to the incumbent president Ronald Reagan and vice president George H.W. Bush. Reagan won the election in a landslide, winning 49 states, with Mondale only winning his home state of Minnesota and the electoral votes from the District of Columbia. At 525 total electoral votes, Reagan set a record for the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a presidential candidate. 

White text on an orange background

“My Heart is on the Left” was and still is a phrase used by many progressive and left leaning activist groups. Non profit political organizations like Americans for Democratic Action use this phrase to promote pride in their group. They were founded after the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) by Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith, Walter Reuther, Arthur Schlesinger, and Reinhold Niebuhr. The intention of the organization is to uphold the ideals of the New Deal and ensure America will remain prosperous for years to come. 

ADA is credited with pushing for the increase of minimum wage across the U.S. and has played a strong role in promoting multiple Democratic presidential candidates and their campaigns. The group fought against the Vietnam war as well as George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. In order to make change ADA primarily pushes for lobbying local senators and their representatives. Even if it seems like a small step at first, they know that banding together as one group can lead to change on a national level. Ada has been making its voice heard for decades and will continue to do so far into the future. 

Illustration of a blue skinned character with a white hat and yellow checked pants swinging a golf club. Black text on an orange background. 

Smurfs are forest creatures created by Belgian writer and illustrator Pierre “Peyo” Culliford (1926-1992). They first appeared in the comic series Johan and Peewit in 1958. Their popularity quickly grew, leading to their own television series in 1959 and a Belgian animated show that aired from 1961 to 1967. The Smurfs' major breakthrough came with their introduction to the American audience through the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Smurfs, which ran from 1981 to 1990 and firmly established the lovable blue characters in American pop culture. 

The "history" of sports in the Smurf universe mainly traces back to a special episode called "The Smurfs' Greatest Sports," where Smurfette, a popular character, hosts the inaugural Smurfic Games. These games are inspired by ancient Greek traditions and feature events such as the Smurf-a-thon and Smurfberry Toss. The Golf Pro Smurf is a part of official Smurf sports history stories. There were two versions of this button produced—one green and one orange—each featuring two Smurfs wearing different hats. Due to the sheer number of Smurf characters, the specific Smurf depicted cannot be identified.

Blue silhouettes of animals over a white background with red and blue text. 

The Fund for Animals was an American organization dedicated to protecting animals from cruelty and neglect. The group was founded in 1967 by Cleveland Amory, a noted author and animal rights activist. The Fund for Animals led numerous large-scale animal rescue operations, including a four-year airlifting project to move wild burros out of The Grand Canyon National Park and the establishment of Black Beauty Ranch, a 1,400 acre animal sanctuary in Texas. The organization was a frequent partner of The Humane Society of the United States, and in 2021 the two organizations fully merged.

Illustration of a rhinoceros wearing a propellor hat and holding a popsicle with black text over a yellow background.  

The Lincoln Park Zoo is a zoo located within Chicago's Lincoln Park, a 1,208 acre park that sits alongside Lake Michigan. Founded in 1878, it is one of the only free admission zoos in the United States. 

The Super Zoo Picnic is an an annual celebration put on by the Lincoln Park Zoo. Those with paid zoo memberships can purchase tickets to this after-hours event which offers exclusive access to park amenities, food, and live entertainment. 

Click here to see the Super Zoo Picnic '83 button. 

Illustration of two men wearing fedora hats, sunglasses, and neckties with a police car over a blue background with white text. 

House of Blues is a chain of music venues that first opened in 1992. The brand was developed by Isaac Tigrett, founder of the Hard  Rock Café, along with a number of collaborators, most notably Dan Aykroyd, co-star of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, from which the House of Blues took much of its stylings and aesthetic. Aykroyd continues to promote the brand, usually by making appearances at the opening of new locations. A Chicago location opened in 1996.

The House of Blues bran places a heavy emphasis on the unifying power of music, as well as highlighting diversity. The African American roots of Blues music is particularly noted.

Black text on a white background.

“What the hell is Pixel 80?” was a headline used by the Pixel Division of Instrumentation Laboratory Inc. to advertise their newest computer model, the Pixel 80. The Pixel 80 was an improvement over their previous model, the Pixel 100. The Pixel 80 featured the latest version of UNIX™  System III with Berkeley enhancements, upgraded to 16 terminals, 6Mb RAM, and housed 420Mb of 5.25 inch Winchester storage in the same box with the same power supply. Advertisements for the Pixel 80 were featured in Computerworld Magazine in July 1983. 

Red text on a cream-colored background.

The slogan “Let’s Love One Another” echoes 1 John 4:7 in the New Testament, which begins, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God.” This button was produced by Randolfe Hayden “Randy” Wicker for the Homosexual League of New York in the early 1960s. Wicker, an outspoken gay rights activist, journalist, and writer, was among the first in the United States to publicly campaign for homosexual visibility and acceptance. In 1962, he became one of the earliest openly gay people to appear on East Coast radio and television programs, and in 1963 he organized a picket at the Whitehall Street Induction Center protesting the U.S. military’s exclusion of gay men.

Using a Bible line like “Let’s love one another” allowed Wicker and other early LGBTQ organizers to do several related things at once: appeal to a broadly Christian public by invoking familiar moral language; reframe homosexuals not as social deviants but as people appealing to the same ethical standards as their neighbors; and push back against religiously grounded condemnations by asserting that Christian teachings about love could support tolerance. That strategy—occasional engagement with religious language and direct outreach to clergy and religious communities—appears repeatedly in histories of the gay rights movement, which combined visibility, appeals to civil-rights language, and outreach to sympathetic religious leaders and congregations.

The Randy Wicker papers (including correspondence, clippings, and organizational material) are held in manuscript collections and document his work with the Homosexual League of New York and later groups; researchers can consult those files for more on distribution and intended audiences for ephemera like this button.

Red and black text on a white background.

Pizza Hut is a global chain serving pizza and Italian-American dishes. It was established in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas, by brothers Dan and Frank Carney. The logo and brick-and-mortar locations are recognizable by their red-roof design. It offers a range of pizzas, as well as pastas, wings, salads, and desserts. There are thousands of restaurants worldwide, making pizza a significant part of American restaurant culture. Although Pizza Hut’s food is popular, its advertising campaigns have been criticized for being controversial and insensitive. 

Hunger strike sit-ins were a powerful protest tactic in the 1960s and 1970s, often used by civil rights, anti-war, labor, feminist, and Indigenous movements. However, Pizza Hut’s “Protest Hunger” campaigns refer to several separate events. One of the most recent was the 2017 Pizza Hut ad incident, where the Israeli branch of Pizza Hut mocked a Palestinian hunger strike and faced widespread boycotts. It also encompasses general examples of using pizza to provide food for protesters, such as with Ian's Pizza during a 2011 protest in Madison, Wisconsin, as well as in fundraising and community support efforts for hunger relief. 

Illustration of a hand holding black text over a neon pink background

Association Films, Inc. was a New York–based distributor of educational films active from the 1940s through 1981. The company specialized in supplying schools, libraries, and community groups with instructional films on topics such as home economics, health, and civic education. At the time, home economics was promoted nationally as both a career path and a means of strengthening families and communities through nutrition, budgeting, and consumer education. The bold design suggests a late 1960s or early 1970s production, aligning with Association Films’ peak years of educational outreach.