Contents
- Where does the teddy bear come from?
- How did the teddy bear become so British?
- How has the teddy bear changed in 120 years?
- Why do we get so attached to our teddy bears?
- What kinds of teddy bears can you find today?
- How do you choose a teddy bear by age?
- How can you tell if a teddy bear is old?
- Frequently asked questions about the teddy bear
- Sources
The teddy bear origin story starts in 1902 and 1903, in two places at almost the same time: the United States and Germany. Its name comes from President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, who refused to shoot a bear tied to a tree on a hunting trip. Meanwhile a German felt-toy workshop was building the first fully jointed toy bear.
More than 120 years later, a teddy still sleeps in most children’s bedrooms, and quite a few grown-ups’ too. Here is where it came from, how it reached Britain, why we get so attached to it and how to choose a good one today.
Where does the teddy bear come from?
Two countries claim its birth, and both are right. Toy historians speak of a double invention a few months apart, with no known link between the two.
A hunt in Mississippi, November 1902
Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States and a keen hunter, was invited on a bear hunt in Mississippi. The day turned up nothing. To give him a trophy, his guides tied an exhausted captured bear to a tree and invited him to shoot it. He refused: killing a tethered animal was not sport.
On 16 November 1902, the cartoonist Clifford Berryman drew the scene for the Washington Post. In that cartoon and the many that followed, the bear shrank into a round little cub with big eyes, far more endearing than the real animal. The public loved it.
A Brooklyn couple and “Teddy’s bear”
In Brooklyn, Morris Michtom, a Russian immigrant, ran a small sweet and toy shop with his wife Rose, who sewed fabric dolls. They saw the cartoon, and Rose stitched a little bear that went into the window as “Teddy’s bear”. According to the family story, Roosevelt agreed to the use of his nickname. By 1903 orders were pouring in and the couple founded a toy company.
In Germany, the first jointed bear
In Giengen an der Brenz, a small town about 100 km from Stuttgart, a seamstress who had had polio as a child ran a felt-toy workshop. Her nephew, who sketched bears at Stuttgart zoo, persuaded her in 1902 to make one in mohair, with arms and legs that moved. That was the real novelty: until then, fabric animals stayed stiff.
The bear was shown at the Leipzig toy fair in spring 1903, and an American buyer ordered 3,000 of them. Historians think it very unlikely that the German workshop knew about the Roosevelt story at the time: two parallel inventions, then, brought together by the name teddy bear.
| Date | What happened | Where |
|---|---|---|
| November 1902 | Roosevelt refuses to shoot a tied bear; the cartoon appears on the 16th | Mississippi, then Washington |
| 1902 | First design for a mohair bear with jointed limbs | Giengen an der Brenz, Germany |
| 1903 | The Michtoms’ “Teddy’s bear” in the shop window; the German bear shown at Leipzig | Brooklyn; Leipzig |
| 1907 | The tune of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic is composed, as an instrumental | United States |
| 1914 to 1918 | German imports stop during the war; British toymakers step up teddy production | Britain |
| 1921 | Christopher Robin Milne is given the bear that becomes Winnie-the-Pooh | London |
| 1932 | Lyrics added to The Teddy Bears’ Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy, born in Omagh | United Kingdom |
| 1984 | Opening of the first museum devoted to teddy bears | Petersfield, Hampshire |
How did the teddy bear become so British?
Teddy fever reached Britain within a few years, and at first most bears in British shops came from Germany. The First World War changed that. When German goods were cut off from 1914, British toymakers, many of them in the Midlands and London, began making their own bears in large numbers. Several firms founded or expanded in those years went on making teddies for decades, and many family bears from the 1920s to the 1950s are British-made. Their long snouts and humps have softened since, but you can still trace that heritage in today’s teddy bears.
Then came the most famous bear of all. On his first birthday in August 1921, Christopher Robin Milne was given a teddy he called Edward. His father, A.A. Milne, renamed him after Winnipeg, a black bear the boy loved to visit at London Zoo, and Winnie-the-Pooh appeared in print in 1926. The original bear and most of his friends now live at the New York Public Library. Pooh’s round, slightly worn look still shapes what many people picture as a classic teddy, as the Winnie-the-Pooh plush versions show.
Music played its part too. The Teddy Bears’ Picnic began as an American instrumental in 1907, and Jimmy Kennedy, a songwriter born in Omagh, gave it words in 1932. Generations of British children have since heard it at nursery, and it still lends its name to summer picnics where every child brings a bear.
How has the teddy bear changed in 120 years?
Put a 1905 bear next to a modern teddy and they look like two different animals. The first was a heavy toy with coarse fur, a long snout, a hump on its back and arms that reached almost to its knees. Large bears of that period measured 45 to 75 cm, roughly 18 to 30 inches.
| Feature | Early bears (1903 to 1940) | Today’s teddies |
|---|---|---|
| Fur | Mohair, woven from angora goat hair, fairly coarse | Very soft synthetic plush, short or long pile |
| Stuffing | Wood wool (excelsior), packed hard | Light polyester fibre, sometimes pellets for weight |
| Eyes | Boot buttons, then glass eyes from around 1910 | Embroidered, or plastic safety eyes fixed from inside |
| Shape | Long snout, humped back, long arms, flat feet | Round head, big tummy, short limbs |
| Joints | Discs inside the shoulders, hips and neck | Often none: a soft body that bends |
| Care | Barely any water; brushing and gentle vacuuming | Washed as the label says, often in the machine |
The big turning point came after the Second World War. The bear grew soft, round and smaller, and moved from the shelf into the bed. That is when it took on the comforter role we know today.
The modern recipe has not wiped out the old one. Jointed bears are still made, in mohair or synthetic fur, for anyone who likes to pose them, cross their arms or tilt their head.
Why do we get so attached to our teddy bears?
In 1953 the British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott gave a name to the blankets, scraps of fabric and soft toys young children will not be parted from: the transitional object. Researchers who followed him see it as a help on the road to independence, with a role that changes as the child grows (Litt, 1986).
That attachment is not only about temperament. In 1,122 pairs of 3-year-old twins, attachment to an object was explained 48% by heredity and 48% by the shared family environment. Children in full-day nursery were more often attached to an object than those who went for half days (Fortuna et al., 2014). What that companion means at each age is explored in our article on why a comforter matters to a child.
And it is never just any bear. In one experiment, children who believed a machine could copy their belongings exactly were far less willing to accept a copy of their attachment object than a copy of a favourite toy (Hood and Bloom, 2008). Yours has a history, a smell, a slightly worn ear: it is the one.
The bond does not always end in early childhood. A Finnish survey of 1,054 secondary pupils with an average age of 14.5 years found that 29% still kept such an object, girls twice as often as boys (Erkolahti and Nyström, 2009).
Pupils who still keep an attachment object, at 14.5 years
No wonder a childhood teddy follows its owner to boarding school, to university halls or into a first home.
What kinds of teddy bears can you find today?
The same animal comes in a handful of families, each with its own job, from the little cub that fits in one hand to the companion that takes over an armchair.
The comforter bear
Floppy, light, no hard parts. It slips into a bag and can be held in one hand.
The classic bear
Sitting or jointed, firmer. It lives on a shelf and is kept for years.
The bear with a job
Weighted, night light, musical or hot water bottle: it does more than cuddle.
Over a metre tall, a bear becomes furniture. You lean on it to read and squeeze it like a cushion. Before choosing from our giant plush range, measure the space and think about cleaning: a bear that size will not fit in the washing machine and is cleaned where it sits. With a young child it stays on the floor or in a corner of the room, never in the bed.
Weighted bears hold pellets that give them heft, for people who like a gentle pressure against them. Night-light bears give off a soft glow, musical bears play a lullaby, and hot water bottle bears keep a warm pouch that you heat exactly as the instructions say. These models have batteries or an insert: read their product page and minimum age, and make sure the battery compartment stays closed, ideally with a screw.
How do you choose a teddy bear by age?
Start with the label. Toys sold in Great Britain carry the UKCA or CE mark, and most makers rely on the EN 71 standard to show they are safe. The round, crossed-out symbol with a baby’s face and “0-3” means “not suitable for children under 36 months”: it warns of small parts that could come loose.
From baby’s cuddle to collector’s shelf
For a baby, go for a bear of 20 to 30 cm that small hands can grab, with stitched eyes and nose rather than glued or clipped ones, and no long shedding fur or ribbon round the neck. For sleep, The Lullaby Trust advises a clear cot until 12 months: no pillows, duvets, bumpers or soft toys. The bear waits nearby for awake time.
Between 3 and 10 years, the bear goes to school, to the park, on holiday to the grandparents’. It has to cope: tug gently on an ear and a paw and check that no seam gapes. A label that allows machine washing will make your life easier. To judge the finish at a glance, see how to recognise a good-quality soft toy.
Adults are given bears for a birth, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, a leaving do or a loss. Here fabric matters more than size: dense fur, stuffing that springs back when pressed, an expressive face. If the person likes to display a bear, a jointed one sits better than a floppy one.
How can you tell if a teddy bear is old?
Collecting bears has its own name, arctophily. Some collectors only want antique bears, others artist bears, hand-sewn in small numbers.
A bear from the first half of the 20th century shows several clues at once: mohair fur often worn at the paws, stuffing that crunches slightly when pressed, a sign of wood wool, glass or boot-button eyes, disc joints, a humped back and a long snout. A single clue proves nothing; the combination does.
An old bear never goes in water: wood wool swells, metal discs rust and mohair keeps watermarks. To dust it safely, follow our method to clean an old teddy bear. And to keep any teddy going, brush it monthly with a soft brush, restitch a seam as soon as it opens and wash a modern bear only as its label says, inside a closed pillowcase. Our guide to washing a stuffed toy covers machine, hand and dry cleaning.
Frequently asked questions about the teddy bear
Who are some famous teddy bears?
In Britain, the best known is Winnie-the-Pooh, based on the bear Christopher Robin Milne was given in 1921. Paddington, created by Michael Bond in 1958, is a bear rather than a teddy but is just as loved, and Rupert Bear has appeared in newspaper strips since 1920. Each child’s own bear usually tops the list, though.
Why did Theodore Roosevelt not like being called Teddy?
He is said to have disliked the nickname because it was the name his family used when he was a sickly child, and it sounded too soft for a public figure. Friends and the press used it anyway, and the toy bear fixed it for good. He preferred “T.R.” or “Colonel”.
What does the name Teddy mean?
Teddy is a pet form of Theodore, a name of Greek origin often translated as “gift of God”, and in Britain it is also short for Edward. The toy took its name from Roosevelt in 1902 and 1903, and “teddy” soon came to mean any soft toy bear, then almost any cuddly toy.
How much is an old teddy bear worth?
It depends on age, maker, condition and history. A well-loved bear from the 1950s may be worth more to the family than at auction, while an early jointed mohair bear in good condition can fetch a great deal. Only a specialist valuer or an auction house can judge a piece properly, never a listing.
Sources
Erkolahti R., Nyström M. (2009). The prevalence of transitional object use in adolescence: is there a connection between the existence of a transitional object and depressive symptoms? European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 18(7), 400-406. DOI: 10.1007/s00787-009-0747-7
Fortuna K., Baor L., Israel S., Abadi A., Knafo A. (2014). Attachment to inanimate objects and early childcare: A twin study. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 486. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00486
Hood B., Bloom P. (2008). Children prefer certain individuals over perfect duplicates. Cognition, 106(1), 455-462. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.01.012
Litt C.J. (1986). Theories of transitional object attachment: An overview. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 9(3), 383-399. DOI: 10.1177/016502548600900308