2-780-210 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Button, 1840s-50s. Two hands resting on a book set into a two-piece gold-washed brass frame with a loop on the reverse for sewing to a garment. The button was discovered in the early 1980s in a flea market in Massachusetts. The use of buttons for political purposes in the United States began in the 1700s. For many years, the image was believed to represent an anti-slavery motif of two hands - one black, one white - resting on a Bible. Today, after detailed digital imaging, the photograph seems to show the hands of just one individual. The symbolic meaning of this unique button is thus open for reinterpretation.