Political Campaign Button History

 By the fall of election years, we see people showing their support for one candidate or another through lawn signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats, and campaign buttons.  

Lapel buttons showing the candidate or his slogan first saw widespread use in the presidential campaign of 1896. The invention of celluloid in the mid 1800s and patent acquisitions by Whitehead and Hoag allowed the company to construct inexpensive campaign buttons by putting a printed picture of the candidate atop a metal button, covering it with celluloid, attaching a metal ring with a pin on the underside and crimping the edge to hold everything in place. 

This William McKinley campaign button from the Benton County Historical Museum's collection was one of their first.

President William McKinley campaign button, 1896

William McKinley of Ohio (with running mate Garret Hobart of New Jersey) was the Republican candidate for President. The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska after he gave his famous “Cross of Gold” speech.  Bryan traveled the country giving speeches advocating for adding silver money to that based on gold. This would have the effect of increasing the country's money supply and stimulating the economy which was currently in a slump.  He was popular with farmers and other rural people who disliked wealthy and urban easterners.

McKinley, who was a Civil War veteran, wanted to stay on the gold standard.  His nationalism led him to advocate for tariffs on imported goods in order to protect American factories and factory workers. His slogan was “a full dinner pail.”  Most of the time, McKinley remained at his home in Canton, Ohio, greeting visitors and handing out campaign buttons for them to distribute.  Theodore Roosevelt said that “He [campaign manager Mark Hanna] has advertised McKinley as if he were a patent medicine.”

McKinley won.  The popular vote was 7,108,480 (51%) for McKinley and 6,511,495 for Bryan.  McKinley won Oregon, California, North Dakota, the Midwest, east, and border states and received 271 electoral votes. Bryan won in the plains and the South for 176 electoral votes.  Note that the total Electoral College then numbered 447 as there were fewer states and only 90 senators and 357 representatives.

By the time of the next election in 1900, Vice President Hobart had died.  He was replaced on the ticket by Theodore Roosevelt. 

William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt campaign button, 1900

Again McKinley faced Bryan in the election.  Bryan repeated his earlier critique of McKinley as too aligned with trusts and other monied interests. He also faulted the McKinley administration for its involvement in the Spanish-American war and its increasing imperialism.  The war, however, was popular with much of the public. In addition, the influx of gold from Alaska and South Africa plus crop failures in other countries coupled with bumper crops at home had brought a return of prosperity.  McKinley was re-elected by a votes of 7,218,039 to 6,358,345 and a margin of 292 to 155 in the Electoral College. He was assassinated in September, 1901; Roosevelt became President.

Campaign buttons lived on. The Benton County Historical Museum does not have a campaign button for Theodore Roosevelt or several other pre-war Presidents but does have buttons for many of the campaigns since 1950. 

 By Martha Fraundorf, Volunteer for Benton County Historical Society, Philomath, Oregon