Pinback button with a white background featuring a color image of a chicken and black printing.
This series of four buttons (2019.0150.18 - 2019.0150.21) proclaim the main messages of the animal rights movement: to end the use of animals as food, clothing, research subjects, and other commodities.
Jerry Meral purchased these buttons in 2017, then donated them to NMAH.
Pinback button with a white background with brown speckles and black and red lettering.
Vegetarianism, long a tenet of the animal rights movement and various religious denominations, gained an increasing following in the twenty-first century among environmentalists concerned about land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change.
Pin is from an online store at GrimmAndProper.etsy.com, Jerry Meral purchased these buttons in 2018, then donated them to NMAH.
By the 1960s and ’70s public awareness about the environment was growing, as were threats like pollution, species extinction, and population growth. Americans founded organizations dedicated to a wide variety of environmental causes.
Growing food organically is seen as “earth friendly” as it eschews the use of pesticides and antibiotics and employs water conserving agricultural methods.