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https://rozsixties.unl.edu/files/original/12025fccd9c8c3e18841c3145e1399ff.jpg
910b4273404e2c1666a4664e2424deb0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buttons
Description
An account of the resource
Buttons were one of the most popular and pervasive forms of political messaging during the 1960s, combining brief messaging and memorable graphic designs. Buttons were inexpensive to produce on a mass basis and easy to distribute. They afforded any individual an opportunity to voice their opinions and, potentially, reach a broad audience. As Hunter Oatman-Stanford has written, “From discreet lapel pins to oversized buttons on purses or backpacks, pinbacks invite conversation by declaring potentially controversial viewpoints to complete strangers.” In this way, buttons were (and still are) a particularly democratic form of political propaganda.
As button collector, John Aisthorpe, has put it, buttons offer “a little snapshot of history.” During the 1960s, buttons were vital to the visual identity of a range of movements. “There were many protest groups who put their views on buttons,” Aisthorpe recalls, “from the early ’60s with the Free Speech Movement (FSM) to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and, later, the Veterans for Peace, the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, and the Yippies.” The political impact of buttons in the 1960s is hard to gauge, though their popularity suggests some modicum of significance. And, as Aisthorpe has asserted, “It’s hard to say what impact they had, but the text of buttons worn at protests were often used as antiwar chants, like ‘Hell no, we won’t go!’… They must have had some effect.” The buttons of the 1960s have remained some of the most enduring relics from this important past.
This collection includes buttons from a wide array of movements from the Sixties, including the student movement, civil rights and Black Power movements, women's liberation, environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, gay liberation, electoral politics, the Chicano movement, the labor movement and the counterculture, with a strong emphasis on the anti-war movement. In addition, a few buttons date from Roz Payne’s activist efforts in the 1970s and 1980s, including the early political campaigns of Vermont politician, Bernie Sanders.
Physical Object
An inanimate, three-dimensional object or substance. Note that digital representations of, or surrogates for, these objects should use Moving Image, Still Image, Text or one of the other types.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
I Support Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Description
An account of the resource
Vietnam Veterans Against the War was an anti-war organization founded in 1967 by U.S. military veterans. According to the organizational website for VVAW, the group was created in New York City “after six Vietnam vets marched together in a peace demonstration. It was organized to voice the growing opposition among returning servicemen and women to the still-raging war in Indochina, and grew rapidly to a membership of over 30,000 throughout the United States as well as active duty GIs stationed in Vietnam. Through ongoing actions and grassroots organization, VVAW exposed the ugly truth about US involvement in Southeast Asia and our first-hand experiences helped many other Americans to see the unjust nature of that war." In the 1970s, VVAW began “the first rap groups to deal with traumatic after-effects of war,” “exposed the shameful neglect of many disabled vets in VA Hospitals,” “helped draft legislation to improve educational benefits and create job programs,” “fought for amnesty for war resisters, including vets with bad discharges,” and “helped make known the negative health effects of exposure to chemical defoliants.”
VVAW members engaged in a number of significant actions during the long-1960s, including Operation RAW (“Rapid American Withdrawal”), the Winter Soldier Investigation, the Dewey Canyon III protests, the Walter Reed Memorial Service, Operation POW and a 1971 occupation of the Statue of Liberty.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Roz Payne
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Format
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Button
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Physical Object
Subject
The topic of the resource
Anti-War Movement
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ca. late-1960s or early-1970s
Anti-War
demonstration
Dewey Canyon III
New York
Operation POW
Operation RAW
Statue of Liberty
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Vietnam War
Walter Reed Memorial Service
Winter Soldier Investigation