About Teddy

Ideas of Teddy Bear Museum

I have been extremely fortunate at having been able to add to my humble Teddy Bear collection, some extremely beautiful and rare vintage teddy bears over many years of collecting, as well as some collectible artist bears as well that are every bit as charming as the old bears. I have always believed that these grand old bears need to be shared, as they have been over generations, and that is why it has always been my dream to start a Teddy Bear Museum, even if it is a virtual one.

History

The name Teddy Bear comes from one of American Presidents Theodore Roosevelt's hunting trips to Mississippi. There were several other hunters competing, and most of them had already shot something. A suite of Roosevelt's attendants, lead by Holt Collier, cornered, clubbed, and tied to a willow tree an American Black Bear after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested he shoot it. He refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this un-sportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902. While the initial cartoon of an adult black bear lassoed by a white handler and a disgusted Roosevelt had symbolic overtones, later issues of that and other Berryman cartoons made the bear smaller and cuter.

A Brooklyn store owner, Morris Michtom, saw the drawing of Roosevelt and the bear cub and was inspired to create a new toy. He created a little stuffed bear cub and put it in his shop window with a sign that read "Teddy's bear." The toys were an immediate success and Michtom founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co., which still exists today.

At the same time, in Germany the Steiff firm, unaware of Michtom's bear, produced a stuffed bear from Richard Steiff's designs. They exhibited the toy at the Leipzig Toy Fair in March 1903 and exported 3000 to the United States.

By 1906 manufacturers other than Michtom and Steiff had joined in and the craze for Teddy Bears was such that ladies carried them everywhere, children were photographed with them, and Roosevelt used one as a mascot in his bid for re-election.