The Birth of the Teddy Bear.
Make it stand out
President Teddy Roosevelt was a hunter - but he drew the line at shooting a tied up cub.
And so the teddy bear was born….
Rose and Morris Michtom moved to Brooklyn in 1887. They owned a small store that sold candy and notions.
In 1902, a bear inspired fear, not gentleness. Teddy Roosevelt was a game hunter and on the 5th day of a hunting trip to the new states of Mississippi and Louisiana, when no bears had been spotted, a companion caught a bear cub and tied it to a tree for the President to shoot. He refused to shoot the cub as he only shot prey that had a chance to defend itself.
The story warmed the hearts of the American people. A cartoon in the Washington Post captured the event.
In honor of the occasion, Morris Michtom made a soft, plush bear and Rose cut and stuffed a piece of velvet, sewed button eyes on it to look like the bear in the cartoon and Morris named it “Teddy’s Bear” . They put it in the front window of the store and got multiple requests to buy it.
They sent the bear to the White House as a gift for the president's children and asked permission to use the name. President Roosevelt said he doubted that his name would help sales, but they were free to use it
A few years earlier, the Steiff company in Germany produced a stuffed bear with arms and legs that moved. An American buyer ordered thousands of them, and between the Michtom bear and the Steiff bear, the “Teddy bear” became incredibly popular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_bear
https://www.nps.gov/thrb/learn/historyculture/storyofteddybear.htm
