The teddy bear was created to commemorate American President Theodore Roosevelt. On November 14, 1902, Theodore Roosevelt went on a bear hunting trip near Onward, Mississippi. Governor Andrew H. Longino of Mississippi had invited him. Unlike some of the other hunters in the party, Roosevelt had not been able to shoot a single bear. Roosevelt’s aides trapped and tied a black bear to a willow tree, commanded by Holt Collier, a born slave and former Confederate cavalryman. They summoned Roosevelt and asked him to shoot it. Roosevelt declined to shoot the bear because he thought it was highly unsportsmanlike. The word of this soon traveled across the country via newspaper stories. The stories detailed the president’s refusal to shoot a bear. It wasn’t just any president, either; it was Theodore Roosevelt, the big game hunter.
Clifford Berryman, a political cartoonist, saw the report and chose to parody the president’s unwillingness to shoot the bear, funnily. On November 16, 1902, Berryman’s cartoon ran in the “Washington Post.” Morris Michtom, the proprietor of a Brooklyn candy shop, saw the cartoon and had an idea. He and his wife, Rose, also produced stuffed animals, and Michtom decided to make a plush toy bear for the president who refused to shoot a bear. He dubbed it ‘Teddy’s Bear.’ Michtom mass-manufactured the toy bears after obtaining Roosevelt’s permission to use his name, which was so successful that he soon created the Ideal Toy Company. Within a few years, the selling of teddy bears had grown so rapidly that he established a soft toy firm to manufacture them. Around the same period, a German firm called Steiff began manufacturing teddy bears with movable joints. Every year, millions of teddies are marketed and given as presents or are manufactured to commemorate specific events or occasions. And it feels that their appeal is unlikely to be dismissed very soon.
Under The Harvest Moon 