Lucy
ACME Canine Unit
What I Learned:
Why was the teddy bear once seen as a dangerous?
This one hits my childhood a little bit. I grew up with my mom telling me the story of why we call it a teddy bear. She used to tell me that President Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip and hadn't seen a single bear. Eventually, he was given the chance to kill an injured bear that had been tied to a tree, but he refused to do it. The story made the news, and eventually the teddy bear was born.
At least, that was the only part of the story I had ever heard.
Recently, I stumbled across a Smithsonian article that said teddy bears were once actually seen as dangerous.
I laughed and had to do a double take.
Dangerous? How could a cute little stuffed bear that comforted so many of us as children possibly be dangerous?
Of course, the wheels in my head immediately started turning. My first thought was, Maybe they were dangerous because of what they were stuffed with? Or maybe there was something dangerous about how they were manufactured?
My curiosity got the better of me, so naturally, I kept reading.
An editorial cartoonist named Clifford Berryman drew the Roosevelt bear story in several cartoons for The Washington Post. A candy store owner in Brooklyn saw the cartoons and also saw a marketing opportunity. He asked his wife if she could make a stuffed version of the little bear.
And from there, the teddy bear started becoming something much bigger.
His wife, Rose, made the bear and put it up in their shop window, originally calling it "Teddy's Bear." It didn't have to stay there very long before it sold. She made more, but demand quickly outgrew what her busy hands could create, so they started a company in 1903. By 1906, the name had changed to "Teddy Bear."
I thought, That's interesting, but what really made the stuffed toy take off?
As I kept reading, I learned that Germany was making teddy bears as well. The Steiff company had created its own version, and at one point sold 3,000 of them to a New York department store.
A year later, President Roosevelt even used the bear as a mascot for his re-election campaign, helping make the little stuffed animal even more famous.
Eventually, the German company even adopted the American name: "Teddy Bear."
And yet, none of that explained the part that had caught my attention in the first place.
How in the world did something this popular and innocent end up being called dangerous?
So far, all of this sounded pretty innocent.
Then I finally got to the supposedly dangerous part.
And no, it wasn't because of what the bears were stuffed with.
Apparently, some people were worried that little girls were becoming too attached to teddy bears instead of playing with dolls.
Yes. Really.
At the time, dolls were seen as a way for girls to practice taking care of babies and preparing for motherhood. Some social commentators worried that if girls preferred cuddling teddy bears instead, they might lose their desire to care for children when they grew up.
One minister in Michigan, Reverend Michael G. Esper, took the concern even further in 1907. He warned his congregation that replacing traditional dolls with teddy bears could eventually lead to fewer women wanting children and, somehow, falling birthrates.
All because little girls liked stuffed bears.
I have to admit, this was definitely not the answer I was expecting when I first wondered why teddy bears had once been considered dangerous.
Thankfully, plenty of people at the time seemed to think the whole thing was ridiculous too. Newspapers published responses defending the bears, and most Americans apparently weren't convinced that a cuddly toy was going to bring about the downfall of motherhood.
Attitudes toward childhood were also beginning to change. Adults were becoming more willing to let children simply be children instead of constantly preparing them for adulthood. Teddy bears fit perfectly into that changing world, and they also became part of a growing market for toys and other things made specifically for children.
Instead of destroying society, teddy bears did something very different.
They became comforting.
During both World Wars, even soldiers carried teddy bears with them in their packs. The same little toy that some people once worried would somehow ruin future generations was now comforting grown adults going through some of the worst circumstances imaginable.
And teddy bears weren't finished taking over the world yet.
In 1921, author A.A. Milne gave his one-year-old son a stuffed bear. That bear eventually inspired one of the most famous bears of all time: Winnie-the-Pooh.
Then, decades later, Elvis Presley sang "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" in the 1957 movie Loving You. Fans responded by sending him thousands of stuffed bears.
So somehow the teddy bear went from being accused of threatening motherhood and marriage...
to Winnie-the-Pooh and Elvis Presley.
History is weird.
Why was the teddy bear once seen as a dangerous?
This one hits my childhood a little bit. I grew up with my mom telling me the story of why we call it a teddy bear. She used to tell me that President Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip and hadn't seen a single bear. Eventually, he was given the chance to kill an injured bear that had been tied to a tree, but he refused to do it. The story made the news, and eventually the teddy bear was born.
At least, that was the only part of the story I had ever heard.
Recently, I stumbled across a Smithsonian article that said teddy bears were once actually seen as dangerous.
I laughed and had to do a double take.
Dangerous? How could a cute little stuffed bear that comforted so many of us as children possibly be dangerous?
Of course, the wheels in my head immediately started turning. My first thought was, Maybe they were dangerous because of what they were stuffed with? Or maybe there was something dangerous about how they were manufactured?
My curiosity got the better of me, so naturally, I kept reading.
An editorial cartoonist named Clifford Berryman drew the Roosevelt bear story in several cartoons for The Washington Post. A candy store owner in Brooklyn saw the cartoons and also saw a marketing opportunity. He asked his wife if she could make a stuffed version of the little bear.
And from there, the teddy bear started becoming something much bigger.
His wife, Rose, made the bear and put it up in their shop window, originally calling it "Teddy's Bear." It didn't have to stay there very long before it sold. She made more, but demand quickly outgrew what her busy hands could create, so they started a company in 1903. By 1906, the name had changed to "Teddy Bear."
I thought, That's interesting, but what really made the stuffed toy take off?
As I kept reading, I learned that Germany was making teddy bears as well. The Steiff company had created its own version, and at one point sold 3,000 of them to a New York department store.
A year later, President Roosevelt even used the bear as a mascot for his re-election campaign, helping make the little stuffed animal even more famous.
Eventually, the German company even adopted the American name: "Teddy Bear."
And yet, none of that explained the part that had caught my attention in the first place.
How in the world did something this popular and innocent end up being called dangerous?
So far, all of this sounded pretty innocent.
Then I finally got to the supposedly dangerous part.
And no, it wasn't because of what the bears were stuffed with.
Apparently, some people were worried that little girls were becoming too attached to teddy bears instead of playing with dolls.
Yes. Really.
At the time, dolls were seen as a way for girls to practice taking care of babies and preparing for motherhood. Some social commentators worried that if girls preferred cuddling teddy bears instead, they might lose their desire to care for children when they grew up.
One minister in Michigan, Reverend Michael G. Esper, took the concern even further in 1907. He warned his congregation that replacing traditional dolls with teddy bears could eventually lead to fewer women wanting children and, somehow, falling birthrates.
All because little girls liked stuffed bears.
I have to admit, this was definitely not the answer I was expecting when I first wondered why teddy bears had once been considered dangerous.
Thankfully, plenty of people at the time seemed to think the whole thing was ridiculous too. Newspapers published responses defending the bears, and most Americans apparently weren't convinced that a cuddly toy was going to bring about the downfall of motherhood.
Attitudes toward childhood were also beginning to change. Adults were becoming more willing to let children simply be children instead of constantly preparing them for adulthood. Teddy bears fit perfectly into that changing world, and they also became part of a growing market for toys and other things made specifically for children.
Instead of destroying society, teddy bears did something very different.
They became comforting.
During both World Wars, even soldiers carried teddy bears with them in their packs. The same little toy that some people once worried would somehow ruin future generations was now comforting grown adults going through some of the worst circumstances imaginable.
And teddy bears weren't finished taking over the world yet.
In 1921, author A.A. Milne gave his one-year-old son a stuffed bear. That bear eventually inspired one of the most famous bears of all time: Winnie-the-Pooh.
Then, decades later, Elvis Presley sang "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" in the 1957 movie Loving You. Fans responded by sending him thousands of stuffed bears.
So somehow the teddy bear went from being accused of threatening motherhood and marriage...
to Winnie-the-Pooh and Elvis Presley.
History is weird.
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