Campaign button
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Campaign buttons are used in an election as political advertising for (or against) a candidate or political party, or to proclaim the issues that are part of the political platform.
In "celluloid" buttons, first used in 1896, one side of a metal disk is covered with paper (printed with the message) and protected by a layer of clear plastic. Since 1916, buttons have also been produced by lithographing the image directly onto the metal disk. [1] Thousands of buttons are produced and distributed to the public. A celluloid-type button is fastened to a garment using a pin on the back side of the button (in recently-produced buttons, the pin generally fits into a safety-pin-style catch). A lithographed button may fasten with a pinback or with a metal tab which folds over a lapel or pocket.
One of the most famous uses of campaign buttons occurred during the 1940 U.S. presidential election, when Wendell Willkie's campaign produced millions of lithographed slogan buttons in rapid response to news items about President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[2]
Campaign buttons bear some similarity to bumper stickers, which are also used for political and other promotional messages. As a novelty item, campaign buttons are part of the the hobby of collecting.
Recently, increasing advertising expenses and legal limits on expenditures have led many U.S. campaigns to abandon buttons in favor of disposable lapel stickers, which are much less expensive.[3]
However, wider availability of machines for producing celluloid-type buttons (as well as inkjet and laser printers and design software) now permit even small campaigns to produce or acquire buttons relatively inexpensively, even in small quantities.
