How did teddy bears start?

Question

Who invented them, and why are they called Teddy bears? How did they get their name? Just curious.

Answer 1

Teddy Roosevelt was a popular public figure as president of the US, but also loved to hunt.  One day when he was hunting, he came across a cub.  He refused to shoot the cub and since then, bear cubs were called "teddy bears"

The name Teddy Bear comes from one of American President Theodore Roosevelt's hunting trips to Mississippi. There were several other hunters competing, and most of them had already shot something. A suite of Roosevelt's attendants, led by Holt Collier,[1] cornered, clubbed, and tied to a willow tree an American Black Bear after a long exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested he shoot it. He refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike,[2] but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902.[3] While the initial cartoon of an adult black bear lassoed by a white handler and a disgusted Roosevelt had symbolic overtones, later issues of that and other Berryman cartoons made the bear smaller and cuter.[4]

A Brooklyn store owner, Morris Michtom, saw the drawing of Roosevelt and the bear cub and was inspired to create a new toy. He created a little stuffed bear cub and put it in his shop window with a sign that read "Teddy's bear." The toys were an immediate success and Michtom founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co., which still exists today.[2]

At the same time, in Germany the Steiff firm, unaware of Michtom's bear, produced a stuffed bear from Richard Steiff's designs. They exhibited the toy at the Leipzig Toy Fair in March 1903 and exported 3000 to the United States.[5][2][6]

By 1906 manufacturers other than Michtom and Steiff had joined in and the craze for Teddy Bears was such that ladies carried them everywhere, children were photographed with them, and Roosevelt used one as a mascot in his bid for re-election.[5]

American educator Seymour Eaton wrote the children's book series The Roosevelt Bears,[7] while composer John Bratton wrote "The Teddy Bear Two Step" music which with Jimmy Kennedy's lyrics became the song "The Teddy Bears' Picnic".[8]

Answer 2

From tedy roosevelt as perviously stated

Answer 3

Golden Leaf beat me to the punch, but they were named after Roosevelt.