Pin from the Truman White House bowling alley, about 1952

A president who cast himself as a man of the people, Harry S. Truman indulged his taste for bowling by having an alley installed in the White House basement during his second term. This pin, clearly well used, was salvaged by a White House employee when the bowling alley was dismantled after Truman left office in 1953. The employee passed it along to a friend at the Smithsonian, who kept it on his desk as a conversation piece for a few years before eventually donating it to the political history collections in 1960.

See also: Presidential Memorabilia, Sports Memorabilia

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