{"product_id":"vintage-buy-american-japanese-pin-indianapolis-1960s-treasures-gifts","title":"Vintage 1960s Buy American Not Japan Pin 🔧 Wesco Westinghouse NOS 2¼\" Made in USA","description":"\u003ch2\u003eBuy American, Not Japan? 🔧 Vintage 1960s Wesco Westinghouse Pin, NOS 2¼\"\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2 1\/4\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UQ3NCPT8fqs\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e🔧 Four words, a flag and a heavy black X. This \u003cstrong\u003evintage 1960s \"BUY AMERICAN NOT JAPAN\" pinback button\u003c\/strong\u003e carries one of the longest-running slogans in American trade politics, and it says it without a single soft edge: bold blue letters, the red-disc national flag of Japan boxed and crossed out, and \u003cstrong\u003eMADE IN U.S.A.\u003c\/strong\u003e printed across the bottom. Turn it on its side and the rolled edge carries the name \u003cstrong\u003eWESCO\u003c\/strong\u003e with an Indianapolis telephone number. WESCO was the \u003cstrong\u003eWestinghouse Electric Supply Company\u003c\/strong\u003e, the electrical supply arm Westinghouse founded in 1922, the same Westinghouse whose factories hung the \"We Can Do It!\" poster in 1943. It is a big \u003cstrong\u003e2 1\/4 inch\u003c\/strong\u003e button, and it is \u003cstrong\u003enew old stock\u003c\/strong\u003e, never worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe button takes a side. The history behind it is worth telling straight, because the slogan is older than the pin, outlived it, and had consequences that reached far beyond a lapel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🧰 What Is Printed on the Pin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the top arc, in blue capitals, the button reads \u003cstrong\u003eBUY AMERICAN\u003c\/strong\u003e, with \u003cstrong\u003eNOT\u003c\/strong\u003e set beneath it. In the center a black-outlined box holds a red disc on a white field, the national flag of Japan, struck through corner to corner by two rough black brush strokes. Under the box the word \u003cstrong\u003eJAPAN\u003c\/strong\u003e is printed small in red, and the bottom arc reads \u003cstrong\u003eMADE IN U.S.A.\u003c\/strong\u003e in blue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe printed face sits under a clear glossy cover crimped around a metal shell. The back is bright bare metal with a straight pin bar and clasp. Turn the button on its side and the printed face wraps over the rolled edge, where the name \u003cstrong\u003eWESCO\u003c\/strong\u003e is printed, followed by a telephone number in Indiana's 317 area code.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏭 WESCO: Westinghouse's Own Electrical Supply Company\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe name on the rim belongs to one of the great American electrical companies. WESCO was the short name of the \u003cstrong\u003eWestinghouse Electric Supply Company\u003c\/strong\u003e, founded in 1922 as the distribution arm of the Westinghouse Electric \u0026amp; Manufacturing Company to sell and distribute Westinghouse lighting and electrical products.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe short name is old. On December 9, 1948, the Westinghouse Electric Supply Company, \"Wesco,\" moved into a new building on Pittsburgh's North Shore, and for years a large orange and blue sign on the Wesco roof carried the company slogan: \"You can be sure...if it's Westinghouse.\" Westinghouse replaced it with a computer-controlled sign in June 1967, and that sign stood until the building came down in the autumn of 1998.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWESCO stayed a Westinghouse company for more than seventy years. The parent renamed itself Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1945, and in February 1994 it sold the distribution business to the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier \u0026amp; Rice, which set it up as Wesco Distribution. WESCO still runs a branch in Indianapolis.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe telephone number on the curl does the locating. Area code 317 was one of the original area codes laid out in 1947. From 1948 it covered central Indiana, with Indianapolis at its heart, and it kept that territory until February 1, 1997, when the outlying counties moved to 765. Today the 862 exchange is assigned to Acton, in the southeast corner of Marion County, a community that has been part of the city of Indianapolis since the Unigov law of 1969.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎖 Westinghouse and \"We Can Do It!\"\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe WESCO name ties this button to the company behind \"We Can Do It!\" In 1942, Westinghouse's War Production Coordinating Committee, one of hundreds of labor-management committees organized under the national War Production Board, hired Pittsburgh artist \u003cstrong\u003eJ. Howard Miller\u003c\/strong\u003e to create a series of posters for its plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of them was \u003cstrong\u003e\"We Can Do It!\"\u003c\/strong\u003e It was scheduled to hang for two five-day work weeks starting Monday, February 15, 1943, in Westinghouse factories in East Pittsburgh and the Midwest, and no more than 1,800 copies were printed. It was made for workers already on the job, not for recruiting, and after the war it disappeared for nearly four decades. In 1982 it was reproduced in a Washington Post Magazine article about posters in the National Archives, and it was soon widely reproduced and tied for good to the name Rosie the Riveter. The National Archives holds it today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTold as Westinghouse history, this button sits between the company's wartime \"We Can Do It!\" poster and the louder Buy American fights of the 1970s and 1980s. The wartime poster was about keeping production up to win a war. By the 1960s the worry had turned to keeping factory orders and jobs at home, and a crossed-out flag on a button carrying the WESCO name put that worry on a lapel.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📻 Westinghouse on the Store Shelf\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWestinghouse felt the Japanese imports on its own shelf space. In 1960 only 2,000 imported televisions were sold in the United States; by 1969 nearly 2 million of the 13.3 million sold came from abroad, largely from Japan. In 1960, 7.5 million of the 24.4 million radios sold here were imported, and in 1969 imported radios reached 29 million units, the first time foreign-made radios topped half of all radios sold. Shelves once dominated by RCA, Zenith, Admiral, \u003cstrong\u003eWestinghouse\u003c\/strong\u003e, GE, Emerson, Motorola and Philco filled with cheaper sets from Aiwa, Hitachi, Kenwood, Pioneer, Sansui, Sharp, Sanyo and Toshiba.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe American television industry and its workers fought back. On March 10, 1971, the Treasury found that Japanese television sets were being dumped in the United States, and the Committee to Preserve American Color Television, representing members of the U.S. television industry and its workers, went to court against the April 28, 1980 settlement of those dumping duties.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📚 A Slogan Older Than the Pin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Buy American\" did not begin with Japan. In late 1932 and early 1933, at the bottom of the Depression, William Randolph Hearst turned his 27 daily newspapers, with a combined circulation of 5.5 million, into a Buy American campaign that ran editorials, testimonials, articles and cartoons every day for three months under the message \"Buy American and spend American.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea became federal law almost at once. President Herbert Hoover signed the \u003cstrong\u003eBuy American Act\u003c\/strong\u003e on March 3, 1933, his last full day in office, requiring the United States government to prefer U.S.-made products in its own purchases.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⚖️ Why Japan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the Second World War, Japan rebuilt its economy on exports, and the United States was its major market. The first quarrel was over clothing. The Japanese \"dollar blouse\" of the mid-1950s glutted American stores so thoroughly that it soon sold for well under a dollar, American protests followed in 1956, and in 1957 Japan agreed to restrain its cotton textile exports to the United States for five years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe quarrels then moved from industry to industry. Japanese steelmakers began restraining their exports to the United States in January 1969. President Richard Nixon opened talks on synthetic and wool textiles in 1969, and that agreement was signed in January 1972. Colour televisions were placed under an orderly marketing agreement in 1977, and in 1981 Japan agreed to restrain its car exports to the United States, a limit that ran until 1994. In October 1985 the Plaza Accord was adopted at a meeting of G-5 finance ministers to correct the trade imbalances, and in 1986 the two countries signed their first semiconductor agreement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pin like this one put that whole argument on a lapel. \"Buy American\" was the demand, \"not Japan\" named the rival, and \"Made in U.S.A.\" on the bottom arc made the button its own example.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🔨 The Anger Beyond the Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the early 1980s the argument had turned physical in the auto towns. On March 3, 1981, members of United Auto Workers Local 588 from Ford's stamping plant in Chicago Heights, Illinois, took sledgehammers and bars to a 1975 Toyota Corolla at a rally against buying foreign-made products. Autoworkers smashing Japanese cars in protest became the picture of the \"Japan-bashing\" trade friction of the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cost fell on people who had nothing to do with any of it. On June 19, 1982, in Highland Park, Michigan, Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American draftsman, was beaten by a Chrysler plant supervisor and a laid-off autoworker who took him for Japanese, and he died four days later. The two men were sentenced to three years' probation and $3,000 fines, with no jail time, and the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council called the sentence \"a $3,000 license to kill.\" A federal civil rights conviction followed in 1984, was overturned on appeal in 1986, and ended in acquittal on retrial.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is why a button like this belongs in a history collection. It records how ordinary Americans argued about factories, jobs and imports for half a century, and it is a reminder of where that argument could lead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎖 Size and Condition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button measures \u003cstrong\u003e2 1\/4 inches\u003c\/strong\u003e across, a large size with real presence next to the one-inch campaign buttons most people picture. It is \u003cstrong\u003enew old stock\u003c\/strong\u003e: never worn, never pinned to a jacket, with its pin bar and clasp intact and its blue, red and black printing bright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ Questions People Ask\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat does the crossed-out flag on this pin mean?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe red disc on white is the national flag of Japan. Crossed out beneath \"BUY AMERICAN NOT,\" it turns the button into a trade-protest slogan urging buyers to choose American goods over Japanese imports.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat does WESCO on the edge of this button mean?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt is the short name Westinghouse used for its distribution business, set up in 1922 and sold in 1994. On this button it is printed on the rolled edge beside an Indianapolis telephone number.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat does this button have to do with the \"We Can Do It!\" poster?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth belong to Westinghouse history. J. Howard Miller made \"We Can Do It!\" for Westinghouse's War Production Coordinating Committee, and it hung in Westinghouse factories in February 1943. The rim of this button names the company's supply arm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eIs this pin new old stock?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYes. It has never been worn, and the pin bar and clasp are intact.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHow big is the button?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e2 1\/4 inches across.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhen did \"Buy American\" campaigns target Japan?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slogan dates to the Hearst newspapers' campaign of late 1932 and the Buy American Act of 1933. Japan became its target as trade disputes moved from textiles in the 1950s to steel, televisions and cars in the decades that followed, peaking in the car-smashing rallies of the early 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🧷 Good For\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollectors of protest, political and labor buttons; Westinghouse and electrical-industry memorabilia; Indiana and Indianapolis memorabilia; anyone teaching or studying the history of U.S.-Japan trade and the American auto industry; a shadowbox beside union pins, campaign buttons or a \"We Can Do It!\" print; or wearing on a denim jacket, a work shirt or a bag.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou will receive one vintage 1960s WESCO slogan button, 2 1\/4 inches across, new old stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1957-walt-disney-7-up-zorro-pin-pinback-tv-memorabilia-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1957 7up Zorro Pinback Button 🤠 Walt Disney TV Advertising Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-dancing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1960s-vietnam-war-tell-hanoi-pin-pinback-historic-americana-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1960s Vietnam War Pinback Button 🎖️ \"Tell It to Hanoi\" Pro-War Political Slogan Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44011583275240,"sku":"VAG-8026936213736","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4330432177_lxnl.jpg?v=1785358704","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-buy-american-japanese-pin-indianapolis-1960s-treasures-gifts","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}