Equality
date: label: date made
content: 1903
name: label: referenced
content: Collins, Herbert Ridgeway
label: depicted (sitter)
content: Roosevelt, Theodore
label: depicted (sitter)
content: Washington, Booker T.
notes: label: Description
content: Circular pinback, metal button - "Equality" with black-and-white graphic image of Theodore Roosevelt (left) and Booker T. Washington (right) dining at a circular table. A piece of blue-lined white paper is attached to the very underside of the button, underneath the pinback. Handwritten on it, in cursive-written blue ink, is "Property of Horace S. Merrill 10327 (Parkman?) Rd., Silver Spring, MD".
label: Description
content: The button references the 1901 event where President Teddy Roosevelt invited the black educator (and former slave) Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House - during a time of legal segregation. It was a controversial sensation and a scandal for many at the time. According to an accompanying note and an the an essay referencing the letters of Roosevelt, this was a campaign button created in 1903 by Arthur Pue Gorman, a Democrat Senator from Maryland, to attack Roosevelt in the South.
label: Description
content: Horace Merrill was a professor of history at the University of Maryland and the husband of the donor, Marion G. Merrill. Marion was not only his wife but also his scholarly partner. From a Washington Post obituary: The two were active in the 1950s in protesting against racial segregation in Maryland, they participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March in Alabama and were active in the Giles-Johnson Defense Committee, formed to defend 3 African Americans of a racially-instigated charge of rape in Montgomery County in 1961.
label: Description
content: Accompanying, fragile old note in a small, fragile envelope: "Booker T. Washington - T.R. campaign button used to try to defeat Teddy Roosevelt in the South. Should be given to the Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C., c/o Mr. Herbert Collins, over / See acknowledgement in front of our book "The Republican Command" (a book written by the Merrills). To Mr. Collins for his help with photographs, campaign buttons, etc. - Marrion G. Merrill". Herbert Collins became a curator of political history in 1960 at the Smithsonian’s Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American History (NMAH)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: general subject association
content: African American
label: classified
content: African American History
label: general subject association
content: Blacks
label: referenced
content: Equality
label: general subject association
content: Race Relations
label: general subject association
content: Food Culture
label: general subject association
content: Racism
label: general subject association
content: Buttons, Badges, Ribbons
label: general subject association
content: Segregation
label: indirect
content: Women's History
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, Campaign Collection
label: See more items in
content: Government, Politics, and Reform
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2012.0223.01
label: accession number
content: 2012.0223
label: catalog number
content: 2012.0223.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: button, political
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: circular (overall shape)
label: Physical Description
content: black; white (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 3/4 in; 4.445 cm