History of the Teddy Bear: Two Origins and What Is Documented

Nobody invented the teddy bear alone. Two stories begin in 1902–03. In the US, the story goes that Morris Michtom made one after a cartoon of Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 bear hunt appeared. In Germany, Steiff says Richard Steiff showed its jointed 55 PB at Leipzig in 1903. The letter said to grant Roosevelt's permission has never turned up.

This is desk research from the sources linked below. We have not handled any of the bears mentioned. Makers and shops such as Steiff, Ideal, Merrythought and Harrods are named only because the sources discuss them, and this site is not connected with any of them.

Who invented the teddy bear?

The US story comes first. According to the National Park Service, Brooklyn sweet-shop owner Morris Michtom saw the cartoon, had an idea for a stuffed bear and called it “Teddy's Bear”. The Park Service adds that Michtom mass produced the bears after receiving Roosevelt's permission, and soon founded the Ideal Toy Company. The V&A says Ideal was the first teddy bear maker in the United States and credits Michtom with inventing the term.

The German story is Steiff's own. Steiff says the 55 PB was the world's first jointed teddy bear, developed by Richard Steiff in 1902 and presented at the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1903. That “first” is the company's claim about its own bear.

Why is it called a teddy bear?

The name comes from Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. The Park Service dates his bear-hunting trip to 14 November 1902, near Onward, Mississippi. Clifford Berryman's cartoon of the episode appeared in the Washington Post on 16 November 1902.

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library says the idea and the name came from other people: the Michtoms made a stuffed bear, then sought Roosevelt's consent to use the name. It adds that Roosevelt made no money from the idea.

What really happened on the hunt?

The bear was not a cub. The Presidential Library says it was a full-grown black bear. Holt Collier was among the guides who, with their hounds, trapped an older bear in a waterhole.

Roosevelt would not shoot it and told others not to. The library adds that he did not personally set it free. The small, cute bear came later: it says Berryman first drew a realistic, even fierce animal, then made it smaller and cuter over time.

What is documented, and what is not?

The key source here is a post by a librarian at the New-York Historical Society. We read an archived copy on web.archive.org, whose snapshot date is in its page address, so the live page may differ. The post says contemporary sources fail to confirm these origin stories. The Washington Post and New York Times both reported that Roosevelt failed to get a bear. Neither mentioned a tethered bear he refused to shoot.

The permission letter is the weak point. According to the post, the Brooklyn Eagle reported in 1952 that the Michtom family held the letter of permission. Yet neither the Roosevelt nor the Michtom families could find it. The earliest account of the origin that the author found dates from 1907. The post also suggests the name “Teddy Bear” may first have come from writer Seymour Eaton, though that is not certain.

Our judgement: treat Michtom's permission as a family and museum tradition, not a settled fact. Treat Steiff's “first” the same way.

The Steiff 55 PB, Leipzig 1903

Steiff's own account says Richard was inspired by brown bears and drew them. The finished 55 PB stood 55 cm high, was made of mohair plush and could move. Steiff says Margarete Steiff was not convinced at first but let Richard show it at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903.

Steiff says buyers ordered 3,000 bears there. It also says no known example survives, so nobody can inspect the original design today.

The craze, and how the bear changed

The craze did not arrive overnight. The Presidential Library says it took a few years to sweep the world. The Historical Society post says that, whatever the true origin, a “Teddy Bear” craze had reached across the country by 1906. In its company history, Steiff says it made 1,700,000 toys in 1907, of which 973,999 were teddy bears.

Steiff dates three changes in its own bears:

• 1905: the PAB bears with cardboard discs, a joint system Steiff says is still used today.
• War years: mohair became almost impossible to get, so substitutes were used. Steiff shows a 1919 bear made of paper plush.
• 1950: a redesign. The bear became rounder, with a shorter nose, arms and legs.

Roosevelt's own view was plain. According to the Presidential Library, in a 1914 letter to a girl in Binghamton, New York, he wrote that he thought the Teddy-bear was a kind of doll.

British threads in the story

Steiff says its first foreign business relationship was with Harrods in London, set up in 1895. That predates the teddy bear, so it concerns Steiff products in general.

The Young V&A holds a mohair plush bear made by Ideal in the USA about 1910. Its record says early Ideal bears followed the long-limbed style of German bears, while the triangular head and triangular nose stitching were purely American. It has black boot-button eyes and is stuffed with wood wool.

British making came later. Merrythought says its story began in 1930, when William Gordon Holmes, who owned a Yorkshire spinning mill, saw a chance to make premium soft toys from the natural fibres his mill sourced.

Quick timeline

If you are describing an old bear to someone, say “said to be” for the origin stories and name the source for any “first”. The maker's account is useful, but it is still the maker's account.