Pine man's political memorabilia runs the gamut from banal to bizarre
Try and imagine — if you can — turning on your shower, only to have the water come spouting from the overly broad smile of former President Richard Nixon.
The “Tricky Dick shower head” is easily among the more bizarre pieces of political memorabilia in the collection of Steve Mihaly, 70, of Pine. The collection numbers more than 200 items and he’s been adding to it for more than a half-century.
“I started when I was about 10 years old, because my parents were always dragging me along to the antique shops and sales they loved,” he said. “I wasn’t real thrilled, but I did like American history.”
At one of the sales, Mihaly’s father bought a group of old political buttons that intrigued them both.
“I started with buttons, and then naturally I just sort of started looking for No. 11 and then No. 12 and kept on going,” he said.
Friends of his parents would give him old campaign buttons they had lying around, and he started branching out into other political memorabilia — a Barry Goldwater foot-long measuring stick with the slogan, “Goldwater — A Leader, Not a Ruler,” a three-pack of sugar cubes given out by Dwight Eisenhower’s campaign with one of the three letters in “Ike” pressed onto each cube — even a doll carved out of soap that was given out by William McKinley’s 1896 presidential campaign.
“It looks like a child’s bath toy,” Mihaly said. “And it makes you wonder, ‘Who would this be for?’ Children don’t vote. I thought maybe it was for women, but in 1896, they didn’t vote either.”
Mihaly regularly brings the collection to presentations at places such as the Westmoreland History Education Center and West Overton Village in East Huntingdon, where he gave a talk last month.
In the modern age of mass media, both social and traditional, political memorabilia is more difficult to come by. Gone are the emery boards that could be found in many a grandmother’s odds-and-ends drawer from the 1960s through the 1980s, emblazoned with the names of both successful and failed candidates for a wide variety of local and regional elected offices.
“When I was growing up, it was not uncommon to see candidate campaign headquarters for even in smaller towns,” Mihaly said. “This election cycle, you’d be hard-pressed to find any of those around. Most of the money goes into media, particularly TV. You can’t turn a TV on right now without seeing campaign commercials.”
One of the most unique pieces in Mihaly’s collection came from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaign in the 1940s. It is a set of glass circles etched with FDR’s image.
“They’re stove burner covers,” Mihaly said. “When you turned off the stove, you’d put these over-top and his face glows from the dying heat of the burners.”
FDR’s fifth cousin and predecessor, President Teddy Roosevelt, also released some unique campaign swag: In order to capitalize on his popular catchphrase, “Walk softly and carry a big stick,” his campaign produced “Teddy’s Big Sticks,” which is exactly what it sounds like, a big stick bearing Roosevelt’s initials.
Mihaly said this type of collection is unique because the memorabilia comes from so many different places.
“With political memorabilia, no one keeps records of what was produced or how much, so it’s this constant hunt for things you don’t know exist until you come across them,” he said. “Even in the current election, even local people and political groups have the ability to produce their own items. There could be a button somewhere out there that says, ‘Gibsonia for Teddy Roosevelt.’ I’ve never seen it, but that certainly doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
“It’s a constant search for the unknown,” he said.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at [email protected].
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