Teddy Bear History
The Teddy Bear was named, with his permission, after President Theodore Roosevelt. A border dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana led to a hunting trip in the area in hopes that he’d resolve the dispute. Unfortunately, they had no luck in finding a bear. One was finally captured and tied to a tree for the President to shoot. Roosevelt, an avid sportsman, said that he couldn’t harm the poor bear and word spread.
On November 16, 1902, Clifford Berryman published a political cartoon of it in The Washington Post. Morris and Rose Michtom, owners of a candy store in Brooklyn, NY, created a toy bear from the cartoon. With this soft and cuddly bear in hand the Michtoms asked President Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname. Upon receiving permission the “Teddy Bear” was born.
Teddy Bears are sewn from fabrics or furs that are cut from my own patterns. The costs of materials vary as much as the difference between the different materials. Then there are the choices of is the piece going to be non-jointed or the normal five star jointed, there are also variations of these as some have articulated armatures inside that allow the bear to be posed in almost any position.
Some bears can have squeakers or what are called growlers which work in a weighted bellows type of operation that you tip the bear forward and back activating the growler instead of just squeezing like a squeaker. The eyes can be anything from stitches to plastic safety eyes that are hard to remove by children “swallow hazard”. The pieces for real teddy bear collectors check for shoe button or glass eyes which aren’t as safe for children, but should be valued enough to be protected from our young friends.
So remember Hug a Teddy Bear Today.
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Page Modified by: R.B.Rueby, April 10, 2010