The Unremarkable Button Exhibit

The Museum of Unremarkable Objects "Button" Exhibit

Looking for Submissions

Have an idea? Want to contribute something for an exhibit? Keep in mind the building will be small...around 8x10...so exhibits should not take up too much space. The exhibits could hang on the wall or sit on a shelf, hang from the ceiling or sit on the floor. There will also be an outdoor display area. Exhibits should be of unremarkable items. Things we see and use everyday, but, seen in a whole new way.For instance...Sugar Cubes...but build something out of the sugar cubes. Got an idea? Let's hear it!

Unremarkable Buttons

The earliest known button, writes Ian McNeil in An Encyclopedia of the History of Technology, "was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the earliest known being found in the Indus Valley [now Pakistan]. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old." Early buttons like these usually consisted of a decorative flat face that fit into a loop. Buttons appeared as a means to close cuffs in Eastern Roman, and Byzantine empires, and to fasten the necks of Egyptian tunics, no later than the 5th century AD. Functional buttons with reinforced buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared in Germany in the 13th century. Ornate buttoning among the wealthy required some help. During the Renaissance era in Europe is when buttons migrated to different sides of a shirt for men and women. Men usually donned their own shirts, so their buttons faced right for their convenience. Women with ladies’ maids wore their buttons on the left, to make it easier for the maids to maneuver while facing them. The Industrial Revolution helped popularize and democratize buttons. Once they became cheap enough to produce en masse, buttons by the hundreds lined most kinds of tight-fitting clothing, including shoes. More buttons, closely spaced, gave the wearer the tightest fit. Buttons have proven to be firmly fastened to the fabric of human society – at least the past five thousand years of it. Even with the development of zippers, poppers and Velcro, buttons are still the fastening of choice for people the world over.

Unremarkable Dryer Lint

Dryer lint is generated by the drying of clothes in a clothes dryer; it typically accumulates on a dryer screen. The lint is composed of tiny bits of fabric fibers that are shed from the edges of our garments. Fabrics made of natural fibers like cotton and wool generate more lint than fabrics made of rayon or other synthetic materials. Bits of fiber break off from our clothing from the friction of wear. When clothes go through the washer, dirt and lint are lifted from the garments but remain on the fabric in its wet state. During drying, the lint is released as water is removed from the wet fabric and friction increases as a result of the tumbling action. Finally, a heating mechanism within the dryer called an open-wire element creates an air stream that sweeps through the garments, blowing the lint off and trapping it in the lint screen. The dryer's exhaust system, which pulls moisture and heat safely out of your home, also helps to suction lint off the clothes. The reason for the uniformity of color of gray, is that when you mix colors at random you end up with a muddy, dark mess. Melt a box of crayons together and you’ll see this for yourself. But when you mix clothes that are mostly blues, grays and blacks — as is typical with most wardrobes — with a smattering of reds, browns and greens, the mess becomes bluish gray every time. Essentially, the contributions of your blue jeans and white athletic socks outweigh those of your favorite red t-shirt. Statistics from the U.S. Fire Administration (2017) cite that over 3,000 dryer vent fires occur annually, causing $35 million in damages and resulting in 100 injuries and five deaths per year. Keep your dryer vent lint-free. Accumulated lint in dryer vents is the leading cause of dryer-related fires: 34% of all dryer fires result from excess lint build up.

The Unremarkable Drinking Straw Exhibit

Five hundred million straws are used each day by people in the United States alone. Plastic straws are one of the most widely used, and therefore disposed of, plastic products. By refusing a straw, you can help prevent plastic pollution. You can also ask your local restaurants to provide straws only upon request, or to change to paper or other non-plastic options. Imagine the impact if we all gave up the habit of this single-use plastic item. So say no to the straw, and help change the future.

The Unremarkable Drinking Straw

While plastic straws are a recent invention, humans have been using hollow, cylindrical tubes to bring liquid to their lips for centuries. Ancient Sumerians, one of the first societies known to brew beer—5,000 years ago—submerged long, thin tubes made from precious metals into large jars to reach the liquid sitting below fermentation byproducts. A man named Marvin Stone was the first to file a patent for a drinking straw. in 1888 . The Smithsonian Institute cites a widely touted legend saying Stone was drinking a mint julep on a hot summer day in 1880 when his piece of rye grass, then used as a straw, began to disintegrate. Stone, a paper cigarette holder manufacturer, decided he could make something better. He wrapped strips of paper around a pencil, glued them together, and soon had an early prototype of paper drinking straws. He patented his design in 1888, and by 1890, his factory Stone Industrial was mass producing them. It wasn't until the 1930s that straws gained the ability to bend. Watching his daughter struggle to easily reach her milkshake through a straight paper straw, inventor Joseph Friedman inserted a screw into the straw, wrapped floss around the screw's grooves, and took out the screw. With indentations, the straw could easily bend without breaking. Friedman patented his invention and created the Flex-Straw Company to churn out his design. Five hundred million straws are used each day by people in the United States alone. Plastic straws are one of the most widely used, and therefore disposed of, plastic products. By refusing a straw, you can help prevent plastic pollution. You can also ask your local restaurants to provide straws only upon request, or to change to paper or other non-plastic options. Imagine the impact if we all gave up the habit of this single-use plastic item. So say no to the straw, and help change the future.

The Unremarkable Cotton Swab

Upon observing his wife applying wads of cotton to toothpicks, Leo Gerstenzang, the original founder of the Q-tips® Company, conceived the idea of manufacturing a ready-to-use cotton swab in 1923.