Political ephemera has been around for hundreds of years in the Western world. People have long worn items like ribbons and rosettes to signify political allegiances throughout time.
But it was the United States where the campaign button was created, according to historians. Campaign buttons were introduced during the era of mass politics in the early 1800s. Andrew Jackson’s campaign launch of the “era of the common man,” in the late 1820s resulted in the wide production of personal campaign decorations, such as buttons and banners, and signs.
Initially, campaign buttons were expensive, mostly available to the wealthy, and looked more like jewelry due to the materials available and the tintypes they contained.
Following The American Civil War, in 1865, William McKinley, the 25th president of the US, and his team commissioned campaign buttons similar to those we have today.
The changed appearance and accompanying increase in accessibility was made possible by technological improvement and the invention of celluloid plastic.
In the early 1900s, a pin backing replaced the fixture, a jewelry clasp, on campaign buttons. From that time until the late 1970s, political campaign buttons were a cheap, popular method of advertisement and allowed the public to show their personal support for their respective candidates.
These buttons displayed slogans, photographs of candidates, and campaign symbolism like animals, flags, and other objects. Occasionally, buttons would bear imagery disparaging the opposition candidate, however, more often they were used to promote a candidate.
In the 1980s, with the development of digital technology and the relegation of campaign funding to other forms of media advertising, the use of the campaign button declined to its current low levels of use. In all, campaign buttons are an American tradition with a fascinating history.
Allen, Michael. “Political Buttons and the Material Culture of American Politics, 1828-1976.” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 99, no. 1 (2007): 30–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40492044.
“A Brief History of Political Campaign Buttons,” American Button Machines, April 30, 2010, https://www.americanbuttonmachines.com/blogs/american-button-machines/a-brief-history-of-political-campaign-buttons.
