You know, I always thought the ancestors of my beloved teddy stretched far into history. It was only recently that I found that the history of teddy bears went only as far back as 1902! Shocking!

Many people throughout history claimed credit for inventing the stuffed beat, but the most common one involved non other than United States president Teddy (ah check out his name!) Roosevelt. Legend has it that in 1902 Roosevelt traveled to Mississippi to settle a boundary dispute. As he was an accomplished hunter, his trip included a four-day bear hunt (well, in those days bear hunting was still legal). Unfortunately for him (bears 1, president zero! Ha!), he failed to shoot a single bear. Other members of the party managed to capture a small bear cub. They tied it to a tree so the President could shoot and claim it as his own but Roosevelt refused (good for you, Teddy!), sparing its life.

But hey, that wasn’t the end of it. When the story of the hunt got out, a political cartoonist by the name of Clifford Berryman sketched the whole bear incident in "Drawing the line in Mississippi" and published it in The Washington Post. The simple cartoon was such a hit that the cute little bear character was included in all his cartoons of the President.

Well, all the hype of the incident and cartoons captured the imagination of a Brooklyn shopkeeper, Morris Mitchom. Mitchom, (knowing that he was incapable of making a stuffed bear himself ha!), asked his wife Rose, to stitch a jointed bear to resemble Berryman's drawing. He then placed her creation in their shop window along with a sign that read "Teddy's Bear." And, you know what? EVERYONE wanted a stuffed bear! The bear sold so quickly they couldn't make bears fast enough! Wow! In another stroke of genius, Mitchom wrote to President Roosevelt to ask for permission to name his popular bear "Teddy”. The president reportedly said ‘Yes!’ in a hand-written reply. And the rest, as you know, is history :)

Author Joan C is a bear collector and host a website for bear lovers to share pictures. For more information visit http://www.picmybear.com

Source: www.isnare.com