Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Penguin..buttons

PENGUINS
From 1933 to 1935, American aviator Richard Byrd was on expedition to the South Pole, having first flown a discovery mission there in 1929. His exploits were photographed for the pubic at home, and his every move reported on. When Byrd arranged to export a shipment of penguins to a few American zoos, the public suddenly went wild for penguins. Manufacturers reacted by including penguin designs on all manner of objects, and the image of the tux-clad birds appeared over and over in print as well, throughout the 1930’s.
Tragically, all of the penguins from Byrd's shipments became victims of viruses and impurities their lungs had never before been exposed to. Once veterinarians studied the problem, they discovered that the birds needed to be kept in protective sealed airspace's; the next round of penguins that were imported did survive and million of Americans flocked to zoos to see them.
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some of the button materials: glass, metal, coconut shell, pearl, ivory, celluloid and other plastics
click on image to enlarge