Illustration of a bald little boy with large ears gesturing to a goat on the right. Text is printed in black on the long yellow shirt that the boy is wearing. Button is white with thick yellow outline. "HIGH ADMIRAL CIGARETTES" printed at the bottom of the button in red. Illustration includes an illegible signature.

Mickey Dugan, more commonly known as "Yellow Kid," was a character created by cartoonist Richarld Felton Outcault (1863-1928) who later went on to create "Buster Brown." "Yellow Kid" first appeared in Truth, a weekly humor magazine in 1883, but gained city-wide success appearing in the New York World newspaper as a single-panel color cartoon called "Hogan's Alley" in 1895. Outcault was lured away from Joseph Pulitzer's paper by fierce competitor William Randolph Heart's New York Journal. A legal battle over rights to the strip ensued, creating dual Yellow Kids in the competing newspapers. In the end, Hogan's Alley was retained by the New York World, and Outcault's strip was renamed "The Yellow Kid."

High Admiral Cigarettes included pinback buttons as premiums for purchase through out the 1890s with cartoon depictions of the day. "Yellow Kid" cartoons appeared only in New York City newspapers between 1895 and 1898. The idea of using "Yellow Kid" to sell cigarettes might seem inappropriate but the comic strip was aimed strictly at adults; the cartoon focused on tenement alleys and street kids living in New York City.

An illustration in red of a man with big ears, wide open eyes, and an open mouth that reads "gee whiz" inside. Red text surrounds the head on an ivory background. 

Billboard magazine, founded in 1894 by William H. Donaldson and James Hennegan. Billboard started out as an advertisement company for entertainment before including music recordings in the company at the turn of the century. Billboard is one of the oldest international trade magazines in the world specializing in music. Additionally, Billboard has a Top 100 chart since 1958, consisting of the top 100 songs of each year. Billboard also has a top 200 chart for albums based on their popularity.

Black text on blue illustration of the Earth with an American flag staked into the north pole. Illustration is surrounded by a white border. Two images of explorers Cook and Peary are on either side of black text. A miniature stake is attached to the bottom of the button. 

Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940) and Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920) both claimed to have reached the North Pole with Cook reporting his expedition just days before Peary in 1909. It is widely accepted that Cook, based on his records, never made it to the North Pole and Peary likely made it within 5 miles of the Pole. Cook likely never made it within 500 miles of the North Pole. His Eskimo guides even reported that they went south as opposed to north. Cook had a history of committing fraud in sales prior to the announcement. The irresponsible newspapers ran the stories without fact-checking and a rivalry developed between the two explorers. Cook traveled the United States for 5 or 6 years spreading anti-Peary propaganda. He even had school children write essays about who discovered the North Pole first, Cook or Peary. 

Illustration of a young, blond boy in a pink hat with his brown dog. Both are wearing large, blue bows around their neck while the boy winks and the dog shows his teeth. The background is divided by an angled line, radiating from behind the illustration. The top section is gray while the bottom section is yellow. "Buster Brown Vacation Days Carnival" is printed below the illustration in black. 

Buster Brown Children's Shoe company, founded in 1904, purchased the rights to the little boy Buster Brown and his dog, Tige, who were originally drawn by Richard Outcault in 1902. The shoe company thrived for 100+ years, producing it's own radio show by 1926 and a television show by the 1950s. In the television advertisements, the slogan of Buster Brown and Tige was, "That’s my dog, Tige. He lives in a shoe. I’m Buster Brown. Look for me in there, too." Today, Buster Brown Shoe Company is now known as Brown Shoe Company, owning the familiar names of Famous Footware and Naturalizer across the United States, Canada, and China.

Blue background with two black mountains, two white clouds, and a rainbow using red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. A blue lake, with green grass that has yellow flowers growing.

The rainbow meadow image was created in 1979 by Illuminations, a famous sticker company that tended to design a lot of rainbows, unicorns, and princesses outlined in gold.  Illuminations was founded in the mid-1970s by artists John and Mary Bush and made 200 kinds of stickers during the 1980s sticker craze.

Color illustration of a tiger in front of pink and green flowers on a blue background. 

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Red, white and black text on a city landscape background with a blue banner, and a golden statue of a woman. 

The 1908 Republican National Convention was held at the Chicago Coliseum. The conference was the fourteenth presidential nominating convention for the Republican party; the purpose was to select the successor of President Theodore Roosevelt and Vice President Charles Fairbanks. The Secretary of War William Howard Taft of Ohio won the nomination of the presidency, and James Schoolcraft Sherman of New York was nominated as Taft's running mate. 

Gore's oval shaped picture is in the middle of the button with "DEMOCRATIC TRADITION GORE 2000" above his head. There are smaller pictures of the three most recent Democratic presidents below him, all inside a red circle . Surrounding them, in the outter blue circle, there are other Democratic presidents. The final outter ring of the button is yellow.

This pinback button symbolizes the Election of 2000 of Gore vs. Bush. It was also the famous "recount" election where a good amount of the senior population of Palm Beach County, FL misread their ballots thinking they voted for Gore but really voted for Pat Buchanan.

Colorful illustration of what looks like a grand castle topped by waving US flags but which is likely the Corn Palace. Bald eagle sits on a white circle with red text in the center of the button listing the company's name, Racine, WIS U.S.A. Red text on white background.

The Threshing Machine Co. Corn Palace is located in Mitchell, South Dakota.  The Palace was originally built to boast Mitchell’s thriving agricultural scene and has grown to become a popular tourist destination over the last hundred years.