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Teddy Bears
The Teddy Bear is named after United States President Theodore Roosevelt, who was nicknamed "Teddy". Roosevelt was invited by Mississippi Governor Andrew H. Longino to go on a bear hunting trip in November 1902. Several hunters in the hunting party bagged a bear but Roosevelt had no success. Some of his retinue, led by Holt Collier captured and tied a black bear cub to a tree. They took Roosevelt to the bear so that he could shoot it. The president refused to shoot the bear saying that this was unsportsmanlike. This became the subject of a cartoon by Clifford Berryman in the Washington Post.
Morris Michtom was inspired by this cartoon to create a new toy bear. He made a stuffed bear cub and placed it in his store window with a sign reading "Teddy's bear". The bears were a big success, and Michtom started the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. to manufacture and sell them.
The Steiff company in Germany, produced a stuffed toy bear from Richard Steiff's designs. At the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903 3000 Steiff bears were ordered for the United States.Whether they were actually sold in the USA is not known.
Steiff in Germany and Michtom in the USA were both making teddy bears at about the same tim. Neither company knew of the othe due to slow communications at that time. Some believe that Steiff made the first bear while others say that Michton created the first teddy.
Within another year other manufacturers seeing the craze for "Roosevelt Bears" had also entered into the manufacture of them. Ladies carried them around, children played with them, and Roosevelt used a Teddy bear as a mascot in his campaign for re-election.
Seymour Eaton wrote a series of children's books called The Roosevelt Bears. John Bratton wrote "The Teddy Bear Two Step" which teamed up with Jimmy Kennedy's lyrics, became the famous song "The Teddy Bears' Picnic".
Most teddy bears at this early time looked like real bears, with long noses and black bead eyes. Modern teddy bears have bigger eyes and smaller noses along with cute babylike features to make them attractive to buyers.
Where can you buy Teddy bears? You can find an amazing selection at the lowest discount prices through this link to Amazon: Teddy bears
For more information about toys and Teddy bears see our blog.
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