Pinback button promoting Alfred Landon for president and Frank Knox for vice president, 1936.
With the Great Depression entering its eighth year and the administration's sweeping New Deal recovery programs making only limited inroads, Republicans held out some hope for regaining the White House in 1936. Hoover emerged from hiding but was passed over in favor of Alfred Landon, the popular young governor of Kansas, and one of the few Republicans to survive the elections of 1934. Chicago newspaperman and former Roosevelt Rough Rider Frank Knox accepted the nomination for vice president.
Landon, a moderate who endorsed much of the New Deal and personally admired FDR, proved an inept campaigner, not appearing in public for two months following the convention. Despite a notoriously inaccurate poll predicting a Republican sweep, the Landon-Knox ticket was defeated in the largest popular landslide to that time, losing by 17 million votes and carrying only two states.
This is the signature button for the ticket, featuring images of the candidates with a sunflower (symbol of Kansas) and GOP elephant.
