On November 14, 1902,
President Roosevelt participated in a bear-hunting trip in Mississippi. While
hunting, Roosevelt declared the
behavior of
the other hunters “unsportsmanlike"
after he refused to kill a bear they had captured, and tied to a tree so the
president (who hadn’t managed to make a kill so far) could do the honors of
shooting it. When President Roosevelt saw the cub, he walked away, stating it
would be unsportsmanlike to kill the poor creature. President Roosevelt t told
his companion to “Put it out of its misery,” so the man killed the bear with a
knife after the president left.
Many newspapers around the
country featured political
cartoons starring “Teddy" and “the bear. "Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, New
York, a shop owner named Morris Michtom saw one of the cartoons and had an
idea. Michtom and his wife created plush,
stuffed bears and placed them in the front window of their shop. With permission
from President Roosevelt, Michtom named the bears “Teddy’s Bears.” They were an
instant success. Ladies and children carried the bears with them in public. Did
you know…
1.
After the Titanic sank in 1912, German toy company Steiff
created 500 teddy bears to honor the victims. The “mourning bears” were black
with red-rimmed eyes to show their sympathy. They now sell for $20,000 or more
in auctions.
2.
Bear
hugs (a rough tight embrace) predate teddy bears by sixty
years. The term bear-hug was first recorded in 1846.
3.
Magellan T. Bear became the first teddy bear in space when he
boarded Space Shuttle Discovery in 1995. He wasn’t just a bear on holiday. He
was the education specialist on the mission. Magellan T. Bear was a project for
a Colorado elementary school. The teddy bear later flew around the world, and visited
the South Pole.
4.
Stuffed bears would still exist without Theodore
Roosevelt. German
toy maker Margarete Steiff made a stuffed bear after a trip to the zoo sparked
her nephew to design a stuffed bear he asked her to make in 1903. She was
afraid bears would be too scary for kids, so she designed them with button
eyes, stitched mouths and noses, and movable arms and legs—very similar to the
design of the American bears that became so popular.
5.
The smallest commercially available stitched teddy bear is a
mere 0.29 inches tall, made by South African “microbear” maker Cheryl Moss,
whose largest creations are just taller than half an inch. The world’s largest
stitched teddy bear was made in 2008 in America. The 55-foot-4 creation is
named C.T.Dreams, which stands for Connect the Dreams, and you can visit it at
the Exploration Place in Wichita, Kansas.
6.
The teddy bear stuffing was unhygienic until husband-and-wife
toymakers Wendy Boston and Ken Williams invented washable teddy bears in 1954.
The Wales-made toys used nylon instead of mohair, wood wool, kapok, and other
hard-to-clean materials.
7.
Winnie the Pooh was based on a real bear. A Canadian soldier
bought a black bear cub from a hunter during World War I, and the animal became
a pet and mascot for his troop. The bear, named Winnipeg, later was given to
the London Zoological Gardens, where Christopher Robin Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh author
A.A. Milne’s son, took such a liking to her that he named his teddy bear after
her.
“A bear teaches us that if the
heart is true, it doesn’t matter much if an ear drops off.”
(Helen Exley)[i]
(Helen Exley)[i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“11 Adorable Facts You Never Knew About Teddy Bears” by
·
“Bear Hug "by
www.merriam-webster.com
·
“How Did the Teddy Bear Get Its Name?” by Wonderopolis
·
“Top 10 facts about teddy bears” By WILLIAM HARTSTON
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