The Story of the Teddy Bear
The Teddy Bear is now so much part of our lives that it's hard to believe he was only invented in 1902, and is named after Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt, the famous hunting President of the USA.
For years, the claim to have made the first Teddy Bear has been disputed between America and Germany - and in some ways, both countries made the first Teddy!
The story begins in Germany, in late October 1902, where Richard Steiff, a toy designer working for the family firm in Giengen, went to a touring American circus in search of an idea for a popular new toy.
Among the animals he saw there was a troupe of performing bears, and they sparked off the original idea. The following day, he put his thoughts down on paper for Margarete Steiff, his aunt, who had founded the
firm in 1880. Richard saw an oportunity to make a bear toy, standing upright, and jointed in a similar way to dolls. There had been bear toys before, of course - often made from real fur! - but these had all been copies of real bears on all fours.
Richard's bear would be able to walk upright. Margarete Steiff liked the idea, and Richard set to work on visiting zoos to sketch the bears and come up with some proper designs.
Meanwhile, several thousand miles away, the other half of the Teddy Bear story was about to begin. President Roosevelt, visiting Mississippi to settle a border dispute, decided to go out hunting for the day. After several hours, he still hadn't bagged anything, when
one of his aides discovered a lost bear cub wandering through the woods. Catching it, he tied it to a tree, and brought the President to it - here was his trophy for the day!
'Drawing the Line in Mississippi'
To Roosevelt's eternal credit, he couldn't bring himself to shoot the defenceless cub, and ordered it to be set free. The press pack following Roosevelt's visit heard about the story, and it inspired cartoonist Clifford Berryman to draw a cartoon of the incident, entitled 'Drawing the Line in Mississippi'.
This cartoon was printed in all the papers, and triggered a moment of inspiration for Brooklyn candy store owner Morris Michtom. Using Berryman's cartoon as a guide, he quickly worked out a pattern, and, within days, had put together a little jointed toy bear cub, which he put in his shop window with a copy of the
cartoon, and a handwritten notice saying 'Teddy's Bear'. The Bears sold like wildfire, and within a year, Michtom closed his candy store, and founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. - still one of the biggest toy firms in the world over ninety years later.
In Germany, unaware of what was going on in New York, Richard Steiff completed the designs for his toy bear, and Margarete quickly ran up a prototype from scraps of mohair cloth. The bear, christened 'Friend Petz' first appeared in public at the 1903 Spring Toy Fair at Leipzig, but - to Richard's disappointment,
nobody seemed interested. Legend has it that it was only as Richard was packing away the stand at the end of the fair, that an American toy buyer came up to him, seized the bear, and ordered 3000 on the spot. And so the Teddy Bear was born, and sent on his way to international success.
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Update July 6,1997