The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR. It was the fall of 1960, and the candidates were on the presidential campaign trail. The polls gave Nixon the lead, and talk of a historic debate with Kennedy was in the headlines.
Campaign buttons were everywhere: “Pat for First Lady,” they shouted in red, white, and blue. The Pat pins are rare evidence of this often-forgotten face-off between Pat Nixon and Jacqueline Kennedy as their husbands vied for votes in the 1960 election, just one of the many unexpected stories that emerge from the Muhlenberg College Donald Poppe ’59 Presidential Campaign Button Collection, an archive of more than 1,200 pins shared via JSTOR. Campaign buttons and other swag, former New York City mayor Ed Koch once said, “are the sparkle and glitter of which our campaigns are made.” Donald Poppe would likely agree.
Poppe acquired his first campaign button, in support of Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a teenager in the 1950s. The most contemporary items Poppe added to his vast collection before donating it to his alma mater were from 2020: Trump and Pence promised to “keep America great” while Biden and Harris pledged to “build back better.” (Items from the 2024 campaign have since been included.) “Trump/Pence/Keep American Great/2020” blue and white jugate button.
Over the decades, Poppe obtained pins from every presidential election since inexpensive, mass-produced campaign buttons were introduced in the 1896 contest between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan. The 1896 specimen in the collection representsthe older, more formal era of campaign jewelry, with the names McKinley and Hobart embossed in metal alongside a raised elephant head motif, while the 1900 one would be right at home at today’s political rallies: a round, printed portrait of McKinley set under celluloid, produced by Whitehead & Hoag Co., the company that pioneered the style. Many of the faces and names in the archive are familiar presidents, almost-presidents and frequent also-rans.
The slogans are often familiar, too. Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both told voters they would “make Americagreat again” and, when running for a second term, that they would “keep Americagreat.” Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s pins echoed John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, reading “We want / We need Biden-Harris.” Slogans were even reused in the same contest.
Voters in ’68 could be forgiven for being confused about who, exactly, was the “winning team.” Some enterprising button maker produced nearly identical pins trumpeting the strength of the Democratic ticket, the Republican ticket and the far-right American Independent ticket. "Reagan in '80/Let's Make America Great Again" red, white, and blue portrait button. But the real fun of the archive is the glimpses of political moments that were as ephemeral as the buttons that memorialize them were meant to be.
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