The Campaign Button

The story of this hall

In 1896 a New Jersey firm patented a way to wrap a celluloid picture around a metal disc, and American democracy acquired its smallest broadside. McKinley and Bryan fought the first button war; every campaign since has been argued one inch at a time, on lapels, at diners, across kitchen tables. The button is the citizen's yard sign for the body - worn to declare, to needle, to belong. Grandmothers kept them in coffee cans; historians read whole elections off a single tray. Here they hang by the hundred, red, white, blue, and hopeful. Like every campaign, the hall ends whether your candidate won or not. Turn around.

1896–2008