A constructive method is developed to establish the existence of buckled states of a thin, flat elastic plate that is rectangular in shape, simply supported along its edges, and subjected to a constant compressive thrust applied normal to its two short edges. Under the assumption that the stress function and the deformation of the plate are described by the nonlinear von Karman equations, the approach used yields information regarding not only the number of buckled states near an eigenvalue of the linearized problem, but also the continuous dependence of such states on the load parameter and the possible selection of that buckled state “preferred” by the plate. In particular, the methods used provide a rigorous approach to studying the existence of buckled states near the first eigenvalue of the linearized problem (that is, near the “buckling load”) even when the first eigenvalue is not simple.