Why Do We Love Stuffed Animals and Teddy Bears
We all have toys in our pasts that make us smile just to think of the joy we got from playing with them. For many of us, it was a favorite stuffed animal that we could hold onto for reassurance.
When we woke up in the dark or had to have a shot at the doctor\'s or when we were tired, that bear or other stuffed animal was a friend who never deserted us. Even when we were \"too old\" to carry our little friend around with us, our teddy bears often waited on our beds and got picked up as soon as we came home from daycare or school.
Some of us still have our stuffed animals and a few of us even still have them on our beds. It\'s reassuring to hold onto a piece of our past when we\'re stressed or life gets us down. No matter how badly the world treats us, our little stuffed friend will always be there for us. After a childhood\'s worth of hugging and being carried around, our teddy bear may be a bit bedraggled, but there\'s a lifetime of love inside that soft keepsake. There are memories of birthday parties and bouts with childhood diseases and rainy afternoons when you couldn\'t play outside and none of your friends could come over.
Today, children still love stuffed animals. Often, the first toy an infant plays with is a stuffed animal bought especially for him or her by a fond relative. It isn\'t long before little hands are reaching out for this interesting shape in their crib or playpen, and cuddling it to help them get to sleep. A friendship is formed, a bond that will last into childhood and help the baby and then the child through teething, tough times and the many disappointments of growing up. But why do people love stuffed animals and when did they start being such a big part of our lives?
It\'s likely that people have always fashioned soft toys for their children and the first ones were probably just rude representations of animals or people and filled with straw, grass or dry beans. There is evidence that Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures had something similar to stuffed toys, although it\'s unclear what they were used for. They\'re pictured in tomb paintings and may have been used in religious rites as well as for children\'s toys. We do know that as far back as the Middle Ages, stuffed animals were used in religious plays to depict biblical animals. It\'s not unlikely that children also played with these stuffed animals.
After the Industrial Revolution, stuffed toys became more common and with the advent of the middle class, more people could afford them. Wealthy merchants, bankers and mill owners bought them and less well-off parents copied them by buying cheaper versions for their children. The most famous stuffed animal, the teddy bear, appeared simultaneously in Germany and America.
In America, the teddy bear was based on a cartoon which depicted President Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a leashed bear. He had gone to Mississippi to settle a border dispute and his hosts had tied a bear up so that he could shoot it. Roosevelt, an avid hunter, considered this very unsporting and said so. The caption reads, \"Drawing the line in Mississippi\" and referred both to the bear and the border dispute. It immediately caught the public\'s fancy and so did the stuffed bear that Rose and Morris Michtom made in honor of the President\'s actions.
The Michtom\'s bear sat up, unlike previous toy bears which had stood on all fours and looked fierce. Their bear looked friendly and cuddly and when they put it in the window of their candy store with a sign reading, \"Teddy\'s Bear\", it attracted a lot of attention. It was so popular and sold so well that the Michtoms joined with the Butler Brothers to start the Ideal Toy and Novelty Company - the first teddy bear company in the US.
Coincidentally, also in 1902, the Steiff toy company produced a prototype bear. They had been making stuffed animals and the owner\'s nephew was copying zoo animals when he began to focus on a bear cub there. At a toy show in 1903, few of the European wholesalers were interested in the Steiff bear, but an American buyer realized the potential for success in America where teddy bears, as they were now called, were selling like Cabbage Patch kids or Tickle Me Elmos have in recent years. He brought the Steiff bear to the US where it sold like hotcakes.
Soon, everyone from society matrons to infants had teddy bears, often carrying them with them and having their photos taken with them. Other companies added teddy bears to their stuffed animal line and the craze spread to England and finally Europe. With the exception of the World War I years, handmade, well-crafted teddy bears\' popularity never waned, until the 50\'s, when mass-produced synthetic versions flooded the market. For the next two decades, teddy bears were just another cheap import for the most part, with more upscale teddy bears as only a small segment of the toy business.
However, in the 1970\'s, that changed when a well-known English actor, Peter Bull, wrote a book about his lifelong love for teddy bears. Other books followed and finally, in 1974, Beverly Port, a famous dollmaker, introduced a bear at a dollshow. It was a hit and soon adults began to collect teddy bears as they collected dolls. People searched for the teddy bear models that they\'d loved as children. The old, well-made handcrafted teddy bears began to appear on the collectible market and companies began to make new premium teddy bears the way they had when teddy bears were first popular.
Now, whether they\'re collectibles or toys, there are many lines of high-quality teddy bears and stuffed animals. Consumers demand quality and Gund, Steiff, Ganz and many of the best brands are featured at online companies and in the best upscale stores. Newcomers to the stuffed animal field like Webkinz and Neopets are very popular, as are Beanie Babies by Ty. Whether these will stand the test of time like teddy bears have remains to be seen, but they\'re very popular right now and will be featured on many a 2007 Toy Hot List. As we all know, Hot Lists are fickle and the toys on them change from year to year. Teddy bears and other stuffed animals, however, have stood the test of time and will continue to delight their owners as long as there are children who need a cuddly friend.
Looking for safe toys? At How to Find Safe Toys Lill Hawkins blogs about resources for finding safe toys for Newborns to Teens. Check in daily for the latest toy recalls and a long list of alternatives to blah big-box gifts.
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