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This pair of magnets feature the dramatic photography of Eric Long at the Smithsonian. His subject: the 1903 toy bear made by Morris and Rose Michtom, Teddy's Bear. The Michtoms fashioned their bear after one pictured in a 1902 cartoon by Cliffored Berryman, showing U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt rejecting the offer to shoot a captive bear cub while hunting in Mississippi. Their bear was unique in that by imitating Berryman's cartoon, it was the first to put cute ahead of realism. From a single bear in their candy store window would grow the first U.S. teddy bear manufacturing company, the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company (1907).
Each magnet size: 4" x 4-3/4 (10.16cm x 12.06cm)
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By 1906 America was Teddy Bear crazy. That's about the time the 's was dropped from the name. Society women carried toy bears about, like purses, Seymour Eaton wrote a series of children's books, The Roosevelt Bears, and Albert Williams wrote a popular two-step. Before long, Ideal didn't have the bear market to itself. Steiff had developed a Teddy Bear about the same time, and the Gund company was soon founded, along with many others, including such well established German toy makers as Bing, Schuco, and Hermann.
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