Steiff Teddy Bears
To tell the story of Steiff, the
German teddy bear company is to tell the story of how teddy
bears came into being. It is widely acknowledged that President
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt is the person who gave
his name to teddy bears. This resulted from an incident while
he was hunting when he refused to shoot a bear. This was immortalised
in a Washington Post cartoon and inspired Morris and Rose
Michtom to make a soft toy bear they called Teddy's Bear.
Independently of this, in Germany
in the year 1902, a disabled seamstress called Margarete Steiff
began making soft, jointed bears with what would soon become
the instantly regognisable Steiff "button in ear".
This was an attempt to stop counterfeiters from cashing in
on the Steiff name as it had quickly become synonymous with
quality work, largely due to the Steiff motto of "Only
the best is good enough for children".
Margarete Steiff was a seamstress
and was confined to a wheelchair as a result of contracting
Polio in her youth. She had started making soft toys as a
hobby in 1880 and had sold them to her friends for use as
pincushions. Having seen how popular they were with the children
of her friends as toys she began to produce more designs based
on assorted animals.
Margarete Steiff died of pneumonia
in 1909 but the Steiff company was carried on and the committment
to high quality teddy bears was retained. To this day, no
other brand is as collectible or valued as the Steiff Teddy
Bears.
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