Teddy Bear History

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.