1900 William J Bryan campaign pin

Well, I guess there's nothing like killing off what little readership I have after over a week off than to post a presidential pin but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

This one comes from the 1900 campaign of Williams Jennings Bryan who ran as a Democrat-Populist against William McKinley. Pictured on this jugate with Bryan is his running-mate, Adlai Stevenson I. McKinley won in decisive fashion but was assassinated in 1901 and succeeded by his VP Teddy Roosevelt. It serves as a nice companion piece to my McKinley-Roosevelt pin from that same year.

The paper backing gives a manufacturing date of 1896 which is curious because Bryan was also the Democratic nominee that year against McKinley. But his running mate was Arthur Sewell. I suspect that the company (Whitehead and Hoag, Newark, NJ) reused the paper backs from the 1896 buttons on these Bryan/Stevenson buttons four years later.

The turn of the century was an amazing time in America and I can't read enough about it. There is also a lot of historical fiction set in that era and I read quite a bit of that, too.

My latest (and oldest) pin

This is a Williams Jennings Bryan campaign pin from the 1896 race between Bryan and William McKinley. McKinley won the election and the two faced each other again in 1900. McKinley again came out on top. I posted a McKinley pin from that 1900 race a few week ago.

The front of the pin is in really good shape considering its age. the back shows the ravages of nearly 120 years of sitting in someone's drawer. It's impossible to read without a magnifying glass but the back shows the pin was manufactured by The Whitehead & Hoag Co. of Newark N.J. Patented and it lists three dates, July 17, 1894, April 14, 1896 and July 21, 1896. Don't know what the dates signify. The July '86 date shows up in a Wikipedia entry as a date that a patent was awarded to the firm of pinback buttons:

Benjamin S. Whitehead patented the first innovation to the design in 1893 by inserting a sheet of transparent film made of celluloid over a photograph mounted on a badge to protect the image from scratches and abrasion.^[3] Whitehead had patents for various designs of ornamental badges and medallions previously, patented as early as 1892.^[4] Another patent was issued to Whitehead & Hoag on 21 July 1896 for a "Badge Pin or Button" which used a metal pin anchored to the back of the button to fasten the badge.

Apparently Whitehead and Hoag was a well known firm back in the day.

I'm excited to add this one to my collection.

We'll get back to sports stuff with the next post.