Hobbies And Interests
Origin
Stuffed toys have been around since the 1830s and were originally made at home from cotton, straw and beans. The first stuffed toys ever made were based on animals. They were inspired by hunters who stuffed what they killed to commemorate a successful hunt.
Commercial Stuffed Animals
Stuffed animals were sold commercially for the first time in 1880. While working as a self-employed seamstress, Margarete Steiff of Germany fashioned a pincushion shaped like an elephant as a gift to her family and friends. After discovering how much the children liked the elephants, she started the Steiff company in 1980 and sold them as toys. Six years later, 5,000 elephants had been sold. As of 2011, the Steiff company makes more than 1 million stuffed animals every year.
Wartime
Many German toy makers made stuffed toys between 1880 and 1914. But German imports were banned when World War I broke out, and non-German toy companies filled the void. One was the British toy company Chad Valley, which produced plush animals in 1916. Factories also stopped producing stuffed toys in World War II, so plush animals during that time were made from scraps of material at home. Wendy Boston's homemade war-era toys were sold in England even after the war ended. Boston is credited with developing the fully-washable stuffed animal.
Teddy Bear
German toy manufacturer Gebruder Sussenguth was the first company to sell stuffed bears in 1894, but the first "teddy" bear was sold in 1903. As the legend has it, Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear cub during a hunting trip. The story made national news and inspired a cartoon in "The Washington Post" by Clifford Berryman. Rose Michtom, a Russian immigrant living in America, created a bear and named it "Teddy" with the president's blessings. "I don't think my name is likely to be worth much in the toy bear business, but you are welcome to use it," he wrote.