Teddy Bear History
“I don’t think my name is likely to be worth much in the toy bear business, but you are welcome to use it.”
— Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, 1903

ow wrong Roosevelt was. In lending his name to a new plush children’s toy, the twenty-sixth President of the United States unwittingly gave the toy industry the hook needed to manufacture the most commercially successful toy…the Teddy Bear!

Stuffed toys were an active cottage industry by the end of the nineteenth century. One such company, founded in 1880 belonged to Margarete Steiff, an expert seamstress. At the turn of the century, she introduced a new line - a stuffed bear. Although bears had been the subject for children’s pull toys for some years, the Steiff bear did not capture the hearts and imaginations of Europeans. She might have discontinued the line entirely, except for a fateful incident. 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 utter amazement of Margarete Steiff, ordered 3000 bears!!

The buyer was well aware that in 1902, President Roosevelt had been on an unsuccessful bear hunting trip. The President failed to make a kill so his hosts caught and tethered a bear, presenting it to the President as a sitting target. Naturally the President refused, uttering the immortal words, 'Spare the bear! I will not shoot a tethered animal.' When invited to shoot the captive, Roosevelt refused, disdaining such unsportsmanlike conduct. The incident was illustrated in the Washington Post by Clifford Berryman. By the time the New York buyer saw and ordered the Steiff bears, the bear cub was well established in the minds of Americans as a symbol of innocence and affection.

• 40% of all adults still have their childhood teddy bear.

• The scientific term for teddy bear collecting is Arctophily; Arctos for bear and Philos for love.

• A collection of teddy bears is often referred to as a "hug" of bears.

• A teddy bear survived the 1912 Titanic disaster; its owner Gaspare Gatti, did not.

• 1834Robert Southey writes Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• 1894German Toy Company Gebruder Sussenguth show a stuffed bear toy in their catalogue.
• 1897Bear skittles and 'roly-poy' toy bears feature in the Steiff catalogue and the Steiff Company takes its own stand at the Leipzig toy fair.
• 1899Margarete Steiff registers patents for 23 of her soft toy designs, including a dancing bear and a bear handler with a brown bear.
• 1902Morris Michton sells the first “Teddy’s Bears” in his Brooklyn shop.
• 1903Steiff Company sells 3000 of its 55PB bear to America
• 1906First advertisement for plush bear toys, still called Bruins, in the American toy trade magazine Playthings.
• 1908J.K. Farnell Company makes the first British teddy bears.
• 1909First cartoon animated teddy-bear cartoon, Little Johnny and the Teddy Bears, made in the USA
• 1912Steiff create black teddy bears to give as mourning gifts after the sinking of the Titanic.
• 1919First non-stop Atlantic flight by teddy bears when aviation pioneers Alcock and Brown take teddy bear mascots with them on record-breaking flight.
• 1924First color animation film with a teddy bear theme when Walt Disney produces Alice and the Three Bears.
• 1926  First Edition of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne, published.
• 1930Lyrics of The Teddy Bear’s Picnic written by Jimmy Kennedy and set to the original music written in 1907.
• 1944Smokey Bear adopted as the mascot of the United States Forest and Fire Prevention Campaign.
• 1953Steiff celebrates the Golden Jubilee of Steiff bears with a new style bear, "a comical young bear club" called Jackie Baby.
• 1954Wendy Boston, Welsh toy maker, produces the first truly washable teddy bear.
• 1958Publication of the first Paddington story, A Bear Called Paddington, by Michael Bond.
• 1962Colonel Bob Henderson launches The Teddy Bear Club.
• 1975Walt Disney’s first animated film of Winnie-the-Pooh appears.
• 1985Christe’s of London hold the first ever teddy bear only auction.
• 1994Teddy Girl, a 1904 cinnamon Steiff bear formerly owned by Colonel Bob Henderson is sold at auction in London for $158,000, paid by a Japanese businessman.
• 1995After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, teddy bears became a token for public mourning, clutched by adults and children alike.
• 1997Teddy bears reappeared in force again following the death of Princess Diana
• 1998The Guinness Book of Records enters the smallest teddy bear made (8.5mm tall) made by Lynn Lumb of Halifax, England.
• 2000At a charity auction in Monaco, a South Korean businessman pays $210,000 for a new Steiff bear in Louis Vuitton clothes and accessories.
• 2001After terrorist attacks on America, teddy bears are passed out at Ground Zero by a group called Teddy Cares.