Acampaign button is apin used during anelection aspolitical advertising for (or against) acandidate orpolitical party, or to proclaim the issues that are part of thepolitical platform. In the United States, political buttons date as far back as PresidentGeorge Washington.^[1] They have taken many forms as the technology to create an image and mass production has allowed. In the late 18th and first half of the 19th century they were sewn-onclothingbuttons, whereas the modern forms typically have pins on the back and are therefore also calledpin-back buttons.

Campaign buttons bear some similarity tobumper stickers, which are also used for political and other promotional messages. As anovelty item, campaign buttons are part of the hobby ofcollecting.

The first photographic image on pins dates to 1860.Abraham Lincoln and his various opponents used thetintype or ferrotype photo process.

The first mass production of metal buttons dates to the 1896William McKinley campaign for president with "celluloid" buttons with one side of a metal disk covered with paper (printed with the message) and protected by a layer of clear plastic.

Since 1916, buttons have also been produced bylithographing the image directly onto the metal disk. 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 asafety-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, whenWendell Willkie's campaign produced millions of lithographedslogan buttons in rapid response to news items about PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt.

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.^[2]

Another recent trend is the use of graphical campaign buttons, or "web buttons", that Internet users can place on their personal websites. Graphical campaign buttons are useful because they can be widely distributed for little cost.

However, wider availability of machines for producing celluloid-type buttons (as well asinkjet andlaser printers and designsoftware) now permit even small campaigns to produce or acquire buttons relatively inexpensively, even in small quantities.

Campaign buttons are particularly popular in the United States. They are a less prominent inCanadian politics, and many Canadian campaign buttons are manufactured in the US.^[3]

Campaign button collecting exists as a hobby. The American Political Items Collectors^[4] is a non-profit membership organization, dedicated to promoting the collection, preservation and study of materials relating to political campaigns and the presidency. The most valuable example is believed to be a rare campaign button from the1920 presidential election showing the likenesses of candidateJames M. Cox and his running mateFranklin D. Roosevelt.^[5]

Librarians atRadcliffe College began collecting campaign buttons in the mid-19th century, starting withwomen's suffrage buttons. TheHarvard Kennedy School library now holds a collection of thousands of buttons.^[6]

• Pin-back button
• "I Voted" sticker
• Meyer R. Bimberg

• Media related toCampaign buttons at Wikimedia Commons
• U.S. patent 401,094 Campaign Button, Patented 9 April 1889
• Political Buttons from the Busy Beaver Button Museum

• Collecting
• Election campaigning
• 1860 introductions

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Commons category link from Wikidata