Button:Children's Week, Atlantic City

As a ten-year-old, the donor went with her familty to vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the summer of 1940. Staying at the Dennis Hotel, Bert (short for Alberta) met a boy from West Virginia and went with him on her first date to see the circus on the end of the Steel Pier. She also received this souvenir pinback button, marked as being part of Children's Week in Atlantic City. According to a 1939 article in the "Pittsburgh Press," Children's Week started some years before and the city anticipated 2,500 kids for the 1939 edition, to be held in late June. Parents must have found it a distinct incentive to bring their kids during that week since cooperating hotels offered free accommodation and meals for children under 12. Furthermore, kids received free admission to the piers, movies, and a long list of special events. According to the "New York Sun," in 1942 Children's Week featured the election of a child mayor and city commission as well as the second annual national sandcastle-building competition.