Seocom Enterprises Unlimited LLC Stan Olszewski, Byram, Connecticut Contact Me Member of American Political Items Collectors ( APIC # 16678 )

Political campaign buttons as we know them today were first used in the 1896 Presidential election campaign between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. These are commonly referred to as celluloid pins or buttons. The process was patented in 1896, and basically involves printing an image on a piece of paper, and then covering it with a slightly larger thin, clear piece of celluloid (acetate used mostly now). The edges were then secured with a metal ring or collar pressed into the back of the pin or button.

It was sometime during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, that lithograph buttons also came into use. This involves printing the image onto a piece of tin and stamping out the button from the lithographed tin. No protective covering or collars are used and the pin or button is thus more likely to become scratched because of this.

Prior to this time, there were a very wide variety of campaign items used. Metal clothing buttons were used as far back as 1789 to commemorate the election of our first President, George Washington. Small metal disks, or "medalets", are considered the forerunner of modern campaign buttons and first used in Andrew Jackson's unsuccessful 1824 initial bid for the Presidency. A hole was often punched through the disk and they were worn from the lapel on a string. Other campaign items included studs, which were designed with a metal shank to be worn through a buttonhole on the lapel, ribbons (first used in about 1840 and mostly made of silk), jewelry, banners, bottles, china, cardboard-back photos, metal tokens or other coin-like items of various types, fobs, and ferrotypes, which is simply a photo produced on tin and enclosed in a brass shell with a pin attached.

Buttons can range from simply a printed candidate's name, to more ornate buttons with a portrait, name, along with a special background design on it. Some may not have a name, but in using an easily recognizable symbol associated with the candidate still gets its message across. There were even buttons that changed from text to a portrait depending on the viewed position called flashers. More desirable buttons may even have the names and portraits of both candidates on them, commonly called jugates. Buttons that endorse a popular Presidential candidate that also includes the names of one or several local candidates are called coattails.

Although most buttons are printed to support a certain candidate in a positive manner, some buttons are designed to be derisive against a rival candidate, party, or even to cast an entire concept in a negative manner.

Yes indeed, "Political Americana" and campaign items took many forms, and still do, long before the advent of today's modern campaign buttons, graphics, yard signs, television ads, blogs, websites, and bumper-stickers.

Al Feldstein / Stan Olszewski