• Teddy Roosevelt triumphed over ill health.
• His mother and first wife died on the same day.
• He captured an outlaw.
• He was a lieutenant colonel and hero of the Rough Rider Regiment during the Spanish-American War (1898).
• His favorite proverb was “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
• He loved to hunt big game.
• He ensured the building of the Panama Canal.
• He won the Nobel Peace Prize.
• He added tremendously to the national forests in the western United States.
• He was shot in the chest while campaigning, but recovered.
• And - He had a stuffed bear named after him. 

 

Teddy Roosevelt, detail of painting in the Oklahoma State Capitol Building - click on the photo to enlarge it

As the most popular story goes, Mr. Roosevelt was hunting in Mississippi in 1902 and having no luck.  When a small bear cub was captured for him to shoot, he refused, being quoted as saying, “If I shot that little fellow, I couldn’t be able to look my boys in the face again.”  The next day a political cartoon in The Washington Post by Clifford Berryman depicted the scene with the caption, “Drawing the Line in Mississippi.”  (Some say it’s true meaning referred to the “color line” and showed Mr. Roosevelt’s unyielding support for black civil rights.)

A Russian immigrant, Morris Michtom, and his wife, Rose, owned a novelty store in Brooklyn, New York at the time.  The story of the president sparing the bear cub spread quickly, so Rose made a stuffed, jointed bear whose arms and legs moved.   Michtom sought and received permission to name their creation after the president, hoping it would help sales.  Sales soared.  Morris Michtom would eventually found the Ideal Toy Company.

There is a second version about the origin of the teddy bear.  A German polio victim, Margarete Steiff (1847-1909), was a dressmaker and already making her own stuffed toys when she heard of Roosevelt’s hunting trip.  She made a jointed bear and presented it at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903.   It wasn’’t popular in Europe, but an American, George Borgfeld, ordered 3000.  By the conclusion of 1903, 12,000 of Steiff’s bears had been ordered and shipped to the United States.  Sales grew quickly and still today, her company, Margarete Steiff and Co. GmbH, refers to 1907 as the year of the bear, when they sold over one million!

Here is another story.  While arranging for the wedding reception of the president’s daughter, Alice, a wedding planner saw a stuffed bear in a New York shop window.  Remembering that Roosevelt was an avid hunter, the wedding planner purchased several for table decorations, dressing them in sporting costumes.  They were a hit at the party, and it is said someone asked the president, “To what species do these bears belong?”  Roosevelt responded, “You’ve got me.  I think they must be a new species called Teddy Bears.”

Wherever and however it came about, we can all be grateful that we have the pure pleasure and sweet joy of our teddy friends.  Be they furry, fat, purple, chenille, jointed, wooden, or threadbare, how can anyone help but love them all?