Happy September! This month, I’m looking forward to talking about teddy bears in honor of National Teddy Bear Day on September 9. As most children have felt since the early 1900s, teddy bears have been near-and-dear to my heart.
The small town where my paternal grandparents lived had a teddy bear store, and I remember going occasionally with my grandparents. I still have the teddy bear I got there with them. Moreover, my most prized possession is a very special teddy bear named Hazel.
Source: Courtesy of the author
After my paternal grandmother passed away when I was eleven, a family friend made teddy bears for my sister and me out of my grandma’s pajamas. It’s been almost twenty years since she passed away, but Hazel is still precious to me.
You likely have a similar story about teddy bears in your life, and as I’m guessing most of you already know, we can thank Theodore Roosevelt for the inspiration. Since the story of TR refusing to shoot a tied-up bear, which inspired the creation of the teddy bear, is well-known, I won’t cover that in today’s issue.
Source: Drawing the line in Mississippi. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
If you’re not familiar with the story, I’d recommend this article on the Theodore Roosevelt Center’s blog. Frank Murphy’s children’s book, The Legend of the Teddy Bear, is also quite good. I remember reading it as a child and just recently rereading it to my four-year-old nephew.
Instead, I wanted to look at some less well-known teddy bear material for this month’s issue. Unsurprisingly, there is a plethora of material related to teddy bears in the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library, a lot of which is cartoons or postcards.
After Clifford K. Berryman’s original cartoon first featured the bear that inspired the teddy bear, Berryman and other cartoonists regularly included teddy bears in their cartoons, including this one of TR visiting the Panama Canal.
Source: The President in Panama. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
But more than just cartoon teddy bears show up in the digital library. TR even was sent teddy bears himself. In December 1902, Edna Orum sent TR a toy bear. The president responded by thanking her and noting, “My children will appreciate it far more than if I had succeeded in getting a bear myself.”
Five years later in January 1908, TR thanks Sebastian Walter for sending him the Black Forest Teddy Bear, which Roosevelt calls “the Teddy Bear of the Fatherland.” He notes the bear “works to perfection, and has been the admiration of friends and family already.”
It is possible that this teddy bear that TR received came from Steiff, a German company that began producing teddy bears with removable arms and legs in 1902 and continues to produce them to this day. You can tell it’s a Steiff bear by the iconic “button in the ear” to indicate authenticity.
In fact, the Spielzeug Welten (Toy Museum) in Basel, Switzerland, which my parents had a chance to visit in April of this year, highlights the long history of Steiff teddy bears. The museum even has a teddy bear that TR gave to John Alden Loring, a mammologist and field naturalist, at a dinner in New York on their return from Africa in 1910.
Source: Courtesy of A. LaRue Basinger
My favorite teddy-bear-related item in the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library, though, is a letter TR wrote to a young girl about teddy bears. Just as Roosevelt loved sending letters to his own children, he always seemed delighted to respond to other children who took the time to write him a letter.
In 1914, a young girl from Binghamton, New York, named Harriet Ford reached out to the former president about a very important question to which her father and she had different answers. Harriet was hoping TR could settle the difference. The query in question was: “Is a teddy bear a doll?”
On New Year’s Eve 1914, TR sent a short response to the young girl:
“My dear little Miss Harriet:
I think I must decide the bet in favor of you and against your father. I think the Teddy-bear is a kind of doll.”
Source: Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Harriet S. Ford. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Several months later, TR received a letter from William Hamlin Childs, who related golfing with Harriet’s father and learning of Harriet’s letter to Roosevelt. Apparently, Harriet had written to TR unbeknownst to her family and “very much to the astonishment of the family one morning she produced a letter from [TR] settling the question by [his] statement that it certainly was a doll.” Childs adds, “You can believe that young lady will keep that letter as long as she lives.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this arctophile controversy! Do you agree with TR (and Harriet Ford) that a teddy bear a type of doll, or do you agree with Harriet’s father? Cast your vote in the poll below.
Go 'Teddy! My great grandmother actually gifted me a few teddy bears when I was a child.
I enjoyed all the different aspects of this article. Nice job Rachel!