The first teddy bear made his appearance in the late months of 1902. Surprisingly the US and Germany both made the Teddy Bear unknowingly that the other was also making the bear.
In the US the Teddy Bear first became known from a cartoon drawn by Clifford Berryman showing President Theordore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear. Originally, the cartoon showed Roosevelt with a ferocious looking bear but this image was replaced by a more cuddlier baby bear. The cartoon appeared in the Washington Post on November 16th 1902. It was soon being printed widely and the Mitchoms of New York made their very own Teddy Bear.
In Germany, Richard Steiff often made trips to a zoo to sketch animals and was very much taken by the bears and preferred to sketch these. From this, the Steiff family made their first Teddy Bear.
With World War I now in progress, the teddy bear industry in Germany was now halted and other bear companies were able to break into the teddy bear production. Over the years, bears have been produced in many different ways. From the more original jointed, hand stitched bears to the mass produced bears we see now. These newer bears were often made of synthetics. Also, the eyes were replaced by glass eyes and then later again by plastic. But whatever the colour, size or stuffing, bears have been cherished for more than a century by children and adults alike.
The song The Teddy Bears Picnic came from a song composed by an American artist that was originally called The Teddy Bears Two Step. Other words were added on its change of name. For many years there were only a few major brands of bear such as Steiff but now there's much more of an open market with big names such as Me to You and Gund.
What ever your preference, the teddy bear will always be a timeless treasure to behold.
Making Christmas Teddy Bears in 1915
