Pinback button promoting William Jennings Bryan for president and Adlai Stevenson for vice president, 1900. The Whitehead and Hoag Co., Newark, New Jersey.
"Silver Democrats" Bryan and Stevenson were the Democratic nominees at the turn of the last century, and many Bryan-Stevenson badges, such as this one, are suitably silver-hued. Bryan, who had built a political career as an exponent of Free Silver, was the party's choice for the second time. The convention chose Stevenson, vice president under Grover Cleveland and an official in McKinley's administration, to conciliate moderates worried that Bryan was too left-leaning.
Stevenson's grandson and namesake was a governor of Illinois and twice an unsuccessful candidate for president in the 1950s.
We offer an original button from the 1900 campaign picturing Bryan and Stevenson.
