1916 Progressive National Convention Delegate Badge Medallion Whitehead and Hoag Silvered Copper

The lower medallion from a delegate badge issued for the Progressive National Convention at Chicago in June 1916, silvered copper, about 41 by 47 mm. Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln appear together on the face inside the legend PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL CONVENTION, with CHICAGO 1916 below. The three portraits do the party's arguing for it. A party four years old placed itself in a line running back to the founding rather than off to one side of it. The reverse carries the hallmark of The Whitehead & Hoag Co. of Newark, New Jersey, the largest maker of campaign buttons, convention badges and advertising novelties in the country at the time. The badge was a three-part assembly: a pin bar at the top, a patriotic ribbon between, and this medallion hanging below. The ribbon slot is still cut into the top of the medallion. The ribbon and the bar are gone, which is the usual survival for convention badges of any period. The convention ran four days, June 7 to 10. It nominated Theodore Roosevelt, he declined, and the Progressive Party ended as a national force in that refusal.