Whitehead & Hoag Co.

Founded in Newark, New Jersey, in 1892 by Benjamin S. Whitehead (1858-1940) and Chester R. Hoag (1860-1935), Whitehead & Hoag Company of Newark manufactured buttons. Used in a variety of different realms such as advertising, politics, and business, the company proved to be significant, specifically within manufacturing presidential campaign buttons as political memorabillia. After a steady decline in the company following WWII, Bastian Bros., a New York competitor of the New Jersey company bough the Whitehead & Hoag Company of Newark in 1959, resulting in archived records of various historical buttons and medals being erased. Revolutionizing the production of political campaign buttons, the company proved to be significant in developing innovative manufacturing, leaving a legacy in American production during the late nineteenth until mid-twenteith century.