Teddy Bears
Collectible teddy bears have become synonymous with children’s toys in the modern age, although these bears have not always dominated in this regard. The rise of the Teddy bear began with a cartoonist with the Washington Post and a entrepreneur in all within the United States.
In the advent of the 20th century the president was Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. During his term, he went on a Mississippi bear-hunting trip in November, 1902. Several high-profile individuals were there, including the governor of Mississippi. Most of the hunter had captured a bear several days into their competition, but Teddy had not. A troupe of his assistants went in search of a bear including some hunting hounds. They successfully cornered and captured a young brown bear and tied it to a tree. The assistants then brought Teddy to the bear and politely recommended that Teddy shoot the bear. Teddy declined, but instructed to kill it to remove it from its misery. A political cartoonist, Clifford Berryman drew a cartoon depicting Roosevelt’s disgust with the initial version which had a black bear and a white handler, which had racist symbolic overtones. In later versions of the Teddy bear, it became more feeble, smaller, and cuter.
A New York City entrepreneur saw the bears and was immediately struck to sell them in his shop. He received permission from the Teddy President himself and began production. Simultaneously, a German company featured a variant of the bear in their stores and exported 3,000 to the United States the next year in 1903. Teddy bears have only grown in popularity since that explosive time right after the cartoonist was published.
The teddy bears of today span all the cultural, hobbyist, attitude, and materials that the modern age has come to cherish and offer. You can find a bear to fit nearly any situation and several companies make it their calling card to do just that. Micro companies like the Built-A-Bear Workshop and the Vermont Bear Company continually seek to turn the bear into an American icon for X. The bears are customized by the clothing the wear, the accessories they sport, and the color of their coats. Holidays and special occasions are the time to shine for bear that have customizable words placed on shirts. Birthdays, get well cards, and now a wide variety of different venues host the bears as the softener of their overall image and delivery system.
The teddy bears usually emulate a real life bear, but at the human emotions and characteristics such as clothing and desired chocolates or anything else that anthropomorphizes the bear. Generally the bears are from the brown, black or panda bear families, although the growth in this area has led to the construction and mass production of several different kinds of animals, both large and small, in cuter more miniaturized formats. For example the beanie baby enterprise was launched in the mid 1990s in response to the desire and demand that arose from the small toy enterprise when it offered smaller creatures to global fans.
Modern teddy bears can come in virtually any color and any size that the producer wants to create. Novelty giant bears exist in fairs and other silly venues were the prize is always less than the initial cost. The explosive potential for these creatures has lead to wide commercialization. The National Association of Police and Lay Charities was formed in the late 1990s. One of its central purposes was to bring teddy bears to child who were involved in traumatic incidents. A physiology report found that the bears calmed children, and so large amounts of funding and other resources were used in order to get bears into the hands of police, fire fighters, and other social safety personnel so that they could help mitigate the disastrous effects of some incidents on their childhood.
The bear has become to gift of choice to sick, ailing, or children needing comfort. Due to the softness and the physical security a child finds in being surrounded, emulating the womb, children treasure and associate with teddy bears daily.