Teddy Bears and Their History

There are few toys that really stand up to the test of time, and teddy bears are one of those toys. Their massive popularity has endured for generations, and undoubtedly will continue for generations to come. But stuffed toy bears have not always been part of our toy collections. This is a phenomena that began in the twentieth century, sparked by circumstances that may be surprising.

Teddy bears are named after former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, "Teddy" being a shortened familiar form of the name "Theodore". In 1902, President Roosevelt attended a hunting trip with the governor of Mississippi along with a number of others. During this trip they had a bear-hunting competition, and everybody had killed a bear aside from Roosevelt. Some of Roosevelt's assistants, in an attempt to help him win the competition, themselves captured and restrained a black bear and called for Roosevelt to come and shoot the bear. But he refused to shoot the bear himself, feeling that this violated the spirit of the competition since he himself did not capture the bear. But during the capture of the bear it had been clubbed over the head and badly hurt, so Roosevelt ordered that the bear be put out of its misery.

This incident was widely reported in the media, and was made into a political cartoon in the Washington Post. A toy maker named Morris Michtom saw the political cartoon and decided to create a new toy based on the bear. Capitalizing on the news trend of the moment, he placed one of the cute stuffed bears in his shop window with a sign labelled "Teddy's Bear". The bears became an immediate hit, prompting Michtom to enlarge his business by founding the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company. By 1906 large numbers of other companies were producing similar bears, and they became the biggest toy craze the world had ever seen up until that point.

Today teddy bears are still the most basic and universal of all toys, loved by children and even adults all over the world. It seems strange that such a gruesome incident inspired such a craze for cute stuffed animals, but perhaps the joy that teddy bears have given to the world have made something good out of that unfortunate situation.