Black smiley face with text on mouth on yellow background.

Just Pants was an American franchise headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.  It sold just pants and was the US's largest jean franchise in the late 1970s. The franchise's success decreased during the 1980s and 1990s because of increasing competition. The last store closed in 1998.

This button depicts a variation of the classic yellow smiley face which is comprised of a yellow circle, two black dots for eyes and a black arc ending in serifs for a mouth. It  was designed in 1963 by by commercial artist, Harvey Ross Ball. Ball was commissioned by The State Mutual Life Insurance Company to create a happy face to raise the morale of their employees. His version was created in 10 minutes. The design was printed onto more than 50 million buttons. Neither Ball nor the company copyrighted this smiley, so it was continually used by other businesses in their promotions.

The design and concept is quite simple and was definitely used before Ball’s 1963 version. However his has become the most iconic. Variations have been used for advertising campaigns and in popular culture ever since.

Black text on white background with red and white checkered edge border.

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Black text and frown face with closed eyes and tongue sticking out.

This is a variation of the classic yellow smiley face that is comprised of a yellow circle, two black dots for eyes and a black arc ending in serifs for a mouth. It  was designed in 1963 by by commercial artist, Harvey Ross Ball. Ball was commissioned by The State Mutual Life Insurance Company to create a happy face to raise the morale of their employees. His version was created in 10 minutes. The design was printed onto more than 50 million buttons. Neither Ball nor the company copyrighted this smiley, so it was continually used by other businesses in their promotions. 

The design and concept is quite simple and was definitely used before Ball’s 1963 version. However his has become the most iconic. Variations have been used for advertising campaigns and in popular culture ever since.

Plain and cursive text on white background.

In the 1960s, Underground Uplift Unlimited, based in Manhattan, produced buttons with countercultural slogans.

Two-tone green button with dark green text on light green background on the upper half and light green text with dark green background on the lower half.

The Sad Sack was a comic strip and comic book character created by Sgt. George Baker during WWII. The expression was made by shortening the military slang "sad sack of shit".

A sad sack is an inept person who makes mistakes despite good intentions.

Red text on a green shamrock with red background.

This button was dispensed by a gumball machine in the 1950s. The phrase "Put up or shut up" means that one should either take action in order to realize what they've been talking about, or stop talking about it. The phrase has close relation to the saying "Put your money where your mouth is," as in support your boast with evidence. It is also possible that the phrase comes from the poker game. To put up is synonymous with ante up, in which "ante" means "pot." Another theory maintains that the impolite remark was originated from pugilist trash talk, which calls opponents to either put up your fists to fight or back down.

Dark blue text and illustration of a homely kid on a pink background.

Black text on yellow background.

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White text on a red background.

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Black text on a white background.

Many pinback buttons were distributed with High Admiral Cigarettes to promote the Hogan's Alley comic strip, created by Richard F. Outcault (1863-1928).  The comic strip featured the character The Yellow Kid, AKA Mickey Dugan, a bald young boy wearing an over-sized yellow nightshirt, on which would be written different quotes (such as the example pictured) which featured in the comic.  The 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.