Story of the Teddy Bear – Part I
It’s hard to imagine what life would be like without teddy bears. But it was not always like this. Part 1 of this three-part history of this teddy bear series will guide you through the early years from the turn of the 20th century. The interesting thing to note about the history of the teddy bear is the fact that it originated in the same year in two different parts of the world. One in the United States of America during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt and the other in Germany. This is the story of the teddy bear.
In the early 1900s, 1902 to be exact, a cartoonist named Clifford Berryman drew a cartoon called “Drawing the Line on the Mississippi.” It showed then-President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a baby bear that his men had captured and tied to a tree. According to the story, Roosevelt had traveled to Mississippi to help resolve a border dispute. To help please the president, his hosts took him bear hunting; but because the game was so poor, his men captured a small bear and tied it to a tree for the president to shoot. Roosevelt refused. This story was later captured in cartoon form by Berryman.
Upon its initial publication in the Washington Post, on November 16, 1902, the cartoon caused an immediate sensation and was subsequently reprinted in other newspapers. Including a newspaper in New York. There, this cartoon inspired Morris and Rose Michtom to create a bear to honor the president’s actions. Rose Michtom made a bear, named it “Teddy Bear” and put it in the window of her store, where it sold immediately. More bears were created and sold quickly. It wasn’t long before the Michtoms were unable to meet the demand. It was then that they founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, the first manufacturer of teddy bears in the United States. During the course of his discovery, the Michtoms wrote to the President and asked for permission to use the name “Teddy” in his honor. The president agreed.
Simultaneously in Germany, Margarete Steiff’s nephew was working in his stuffed toy business. [Steiff] and he had drawn sketches of bear cubs that were in the Stuttgart zoo. These designs were used to create a prototype of a toy bear. Several months later, Steiff presented his first bear at the Leipzig Toy Fair. Although European buyers showed minimal interest, there was increasing interest in “Teddy’s Bear” in the United States due to the publicity surrounding the president and the bear cub. An American buyer ordered 3,000 bears shipped to the United States.
By 1906, the United States was in the midst of a teddy bear craze. This would be comparable to the Cabbage Patch doll craze of the 1980s and the more recent Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s. An American composer, JK Bratton, created the score for Teddy Bear’s Picnic with lyrics provided by Jimmy Bratton. Storybooks of teddy bear adventures were being written and teddy bear manufacturers were creating teddy bears that came in all shapes and sizes. The apostrophe ‘s’ was dropped from “Teddy’s Bear” and the word “teddy bear” became the accepted term for this soft stuffed animal. Steiff, too, adopted the “teddy bear” world for his bear products.
Other competitors arose to participate in the manufacturing of teddy bears; but many did not stand the test of time. Except for one, Gund Manufacturing Corporation, which started making bears in 1906 and is still making bears.
In 1926, in England, AA Milne, the father of Christopher Robin Milne, began writing stories about his son’s adventures with his teddy bear and other stuffed animals. Father and son took many trips to the London Zoo and there they fell in love with “Winnie”, an orphaned bear. And the Winnie the Pooh series was born.
History of the Teddy Bear – Part II will discuss the greatest years between 1920-1940