Celebrating the teddy bear... See here a detailed 100 year history of the teddy bear including a time line from 1902 -2002...
Bear History
In late October 1902, Richard Steiff, a toy designer was working for his family firm in Giengen, visited the USA in search of ideas for new toys and went to see a touring American circus . Among the performing animals he saw there was a troupe of bears. They sparked off new ideas and he saw the possibility of making a bear toy jointed in a similiar way to the dolls that they produced. He put his thoughts down on paper for his aunt, Margarete Steiff, who had founded the firm in 1880. She liked the idea and Richard set to work on visiting zoo’s to sketch the bears.
There had been bear toys before, often made from real fur and mostly on wheels, but these had all been copies of real bears on all fours. Richard Steiff wanted his bear to be able to stand upright.
In November 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt was relaxing during a trip to settle a border dispute in Mississippi and was taking part in a hunting trip in the state of Mississippi. Having had no luck in finding a bear, members of the presidential hunting party tracked and caught a small black bear which, as the story goes, was a motherless cub. They tied it to a tree and then “invited” the President to shoot it as a trophy of his visit. When the president arrived on the scene he refused to shoot the bear, considering it to be unsportsmanlike.
The incident caused Clifford K Berryman to draw a cartoon titled “Drawing The Line in Mississippi” which linked the incident to the political dispute that had taken President Roosevelt to Mississippi in the first place. The cartoon appeared in the Washington Post on the 16th November 1902
The cartoon drew immediate attention. In Brooklyn, NY, shopkeeper Morris Michtom displayed 2 toy bears in the window of his Stationary and Novelty store. The bears had been made by his wife Rose Michtom from black plush stuffed excelsior and finished with black button eyes.
Michtom soon recognized the immediate popularity of the new toy. He requested and received permission from President Roosevelt personally to call them Teddy's Bears.
As demand for them increased, Michtom moved his business to a loft where, with the backing of the Butler Brothers opened the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, still one of the largest American toy companies today.
About the same time as it was born in the United States, the Teddy Bear was also born in Giengen in Germany. The Steiff Company of Giengen first introduced the stuffed jointed bear BAR 55PB, christened “Friend Petz” at the 1903 Leipzig Toy Fair. It was here where a New York Toy Importer, Hermann Borgford of George Borgford & Co.ordered several thousand of the Steiff bears for shipping to the USA because of the popularity of the “teddy’s bear” toy there.
While other stories have been told regarding the birth of this wonderful toy, the amazing coincidence of the simultaneous births in Brooklyn and Giengen are substantiated and the world has come to know this stuffed animal by the American name of Teddy Bear. It is now accepted by everyone that this came from the above story about President Roosevelt.
Teddy Bear Timeline
1902 - The American President Theodore Roosevelt refuses to shoot a bear cub while hunting in Mississippi and the incident makes national news. The famous cartoon of the incident by Clifford Berryman is published in the Washington Post on November 16th 1902.
1902 - Richard Steiff travels to the USA, reputedly in October 1902, to look for new ideas for toys and see bears in a travelling circus. He sketches an idea of an upright bear and sends it to his aunt - Margarete Steiff, a German stuffed toy manufacturer since 1880.
1903 - An American buyer, Herman Borgford, at a Leipzig trade show, recognizing the public interest in the Roosevelt story, buys nearly 3000 Steiff bears for shipping to the United States of America.
Stuffed toys were an active cottage industry by the end of the nineteenth century. One such company was founded by Margarete Steiff. At the turn of the century, they introduced a new line - a stuffed bear which rested on all four legs. The Steiff bear did not capture the hearts of the people of Germany however and it is suggested that she might have discontinued the line entirely, except for an amazing coincidence. An American buyer for a New York department store happened upon the Steiff booth at the Leipzig trade show in March 1903, and to the astonishment of Margarete Steiff, he ordered nearly 3000 bears for the burgeoning American market where, because of the Roosevelt incident, the stuffed “teddys bear” had become an amazingly popular toy.
1905 - Steiff’s famous “Button in the Ear” trademark is first seen.
1906 - Other toy manufacturers recognise the amazing success of the “teddy Bear” and start manufacturing their own versions.
1907 - Steiff declares this year as “Barenjahre” - The year of the Bear.
1907 - A book entitled "Teddy Bear" published by Dean's Rag Book Company.
1907 - Music of the famous song, The Teddy Bear's Picnic, composed by John Bratton.
1908 - J.K Farnell company makes the first British Teddy Bear.
1909 - A “teddy Bear” makes its first appearance in a British childrens story book.
By 1910 there were many teddy bear companies and many types of novelty teddy bears. Teddy Bear memorabilia was being produced. There were Roller Bears, Tumbling Bears, Teddy Bear china, Electric Eye Bears. It was also very fashionable for children to have their picture taken with their teddy bear.
1912 - First black teddy bears to be given as mourning gifts - after the sinking of Titanic.
1919 - First non-stop Atlantic flight by teddy bears when aviation pioneers Alcock and Brown take teddy bear mascots with them on their record breaking flight.
1920 - First Rupert Bear picture story, Little Lost Bear, appears in the Daily Express, a UK newspaper.
1921 - The German company Schuco patents the Yes/No teddy bear.
1924 - First colour animation film with a teddy bear theme appears when Walt Disney produces Alice and Three Bears.
1926 - First edition of Winnie The Pooh by author A.A. Milne is publised.
1930 - First teddy bears made by UK firm Merrythought with designs by Florence Atwood.
1933 - Jimmy Kennedy writes the lyrics to the Teddy Bears’ Picnic
1938 - H.M Queen Elizabeth (The Late Queen Mother) grants a Royal Warrant to British teddy bear makers Chad Valley.
1944 - Smokey Bear is adopted as the mascot of the United States Forestry Commissions Fire Prevention Campaign.
1948 - Biffo The Bear appears for the first time in the Beano comic.
1953 - Steiff celebrates the Golden Jubilee with a new style bear "Jackie Baby".
1954 - The first fully machine washable “teddy bear” designed by Wendy Boston appears.
1958 - Publication of the first Paddington Bear story - A Bear Called Paddington.
1959 - Walt Disney acquire the rights to Winnie the Pooh.
1969 - Peter Bull, credited with re-awaking interest in Teddy Bears, publishes “Bear With Me“
1969 - Jim Ownby launches the charity “Good Bears of the World”
1975 - Walt Disney's first animated film of Winnie the Pooh is released.
1979 - The Marquis of Bath organises the Great Teddy Bear Rally at Longleat.
1985 - The London auction house Christie, holds the first Teddy Bear only auction.
1989 - First Teddy Bear Festival held in London.
1989 - A 1926 tipped mohair Steiff bear was sold for UK £55,000 to American Paul Vollp.
1990 - A Hermann Teddy Bear Original 75th Anniversary Limited Edition released.
1990 - Merrythought Diamond Jubilee Limited Edition released.
1994 - Teddy Girl, a 1904 cinnamon coloured mohair Steiff, is sold in auction for GB£110,000 to a man from Japan.
1996 - Teddy Edward, the world's most travelled bear is sold at GB£34,500.
1998 - Teddy bear “Guinness” enters The Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest teddy bear - 8.5mm or 3/10ths of an inch [---] tall, made by Lynn Lumb of Halifax, England.
2002 -This year marks the 100th birthday of the teddy bear
EMAIL: lanie@mohairbears.co.uk
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