My Teddy Bear Collection:
Some of us, if not all, have a precious friend hugging us while we are sleeping. Our confidante, our comforter and our friend, our TEDDY BEARS.
They are these cute stuffed toy that come in different sizes and presentation. As you can see in my collection, I have white, couple of brown, green, yellow, silver, checkered, some are dressed and some are just wearing it's fur. Some are purely for display while others are useful in my room. For now... I got 36 teddy bears and will still be counting. Having this HUGE fascination with Teddy bears, that made me think...
who came up with the idea of the teddy bear?
Don't you know that teddy bears are with us not so long ago? In late 1902, teddy bears synchronously appeared in two different countries: Germany and United states. But each has it's own story to tell how the teddy bear was produced and became a fad.
In the United States, base on their tradition stories, their teddy bears started in a CARTOON. The cartoon was drawn by Clifford Berryman and titled "Drawing the Line in Mississippi". It is portraying Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a baby bear.
According to tradition, Roosevelt is an avid hunter who frequently visits Mississippi to hunt bears. But there is this one day where the hunting was so poor, that someone finally captured a bear and invited Roosevelt to shoot. But Roosevelt refused on firing a shot to this poor helpless bear. And that inspired Berryman to draw a cartoon with Roosevelt refusing to shoot an innocent young bear. This cartoon appeared in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902 and on some panel of cartoons drawn by the artist. That then became an immediate sensation and inspired Morris and Rose Michtom of Brooklyn, New York, to make a stuffed toy bear in honor of the president's actions. They named this sweet, innocent, upright bear ( like the bear in Berryman's cartoon) - TEDDY'S BEAR.
In Germany, far away across the ocean, Richard Steiff, a former art student, was working for his aunt, Margarete Steiff, in her stuffed toy business. He loves visiting the zoo and is fond of sketching the bear cubs he sees. The Steiff company then designed a stuffed bear toy base on Richard's designs. The design was showing humped back and long snout bear, looked more like a real bear cub.
Even both of these manufacturers sprang on the same year, neither knew of each other's existence until March 1903, at the Leipzig Toy Fair, Steiff introduced its first bear—Baer 55PB. An American buyer bought 3000 teddy bears to Steiff because of the Teddy Bear fever happening in America at that time.
Cool history right?So tonight when you go to sleep and start hugging your cute little bear, imagine how history values the teddy bear that is with you.:D
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