Buttons – or badges – are known by other names too: pin-back button, pin-back badge, pinback button, pinback badge, pin button, pin badge, can button, can badge, button badge or simply pin-back or badge! That’s a lot of different names for something so simple!
Buttons, or badges, have been used in political campaigns since the very first presidential inauguration, of George Washington, in 1789. Still lacking a pin, these early buttons were fixed to clothing by being sewn on or were worn as pendants on a string. The first campaign buttons with photographs were made to support the political campaign of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 – photography itself having been invented some 20 years earlier – and in 1893, Benjamin S. Whitehead patented a design with a film of transparent celluloid covering the button, thereby protecting the photograph from scratches. In 1896, Whitehead, along with a Mr. Hoag patented a design for a “Badge Pin or Button” which used a metal pin fixed to the back of the button to fasten the badge to clothing. And thus, we might say that the modern pin back button was born!
This is what the patent application says in part: “My present invention has reference to improvements in badges for use as lapel pins or buttons, or other like uses, and has for its primary object to provide […] a novel means for connecting the ornamental shell or button to the bar or pin for securing the badge to the lapel of the coat”
In subsequent years, other inventors patented other changes and improvements to the design.
In the late 19th century, buttons were printed with the popular cartoon character, The Yellow Kid, and given away with chewing gum and tobacco products as prizes to promote sales. In 1946, the cereal company Kellogg gave away pin-back buttons in their boxes of Pep Cereal – a whole wheat breakfast cereal first introduced in 1923, and finally discontinued in the late 1970s. These Pep pin-back buttons featured US Army squadrons, and characters from newspaper comics – including Superman, due to the fact that the Kellogg Company was a sponsor of Mutual Radio’s radio series “The Adventures of Superman”. Mint condition Pep pins are much-sought-after collectors’ items. We at BadgElation are sure that many of our designs are similarly destined for can badge hall of fame!