The Teddy Bear’s Origin Story

Highlights

• In 1902, Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear that had been captured during a hunting trip.
• A political cartoon of Roosevelt’s stance inspired shopkeepers to create a stuffed “Teddy’s Bear.”
• The toy became a worldwide sensation and remains a childhood classic more than a century later. 

Few toys are as universally adored as the teddy bear. Its origin, however, lies not in a nursery but in the pine forests of Mississippi—and in the character of President Theodore Roosevelt.

In November 1902, Roosevelt was invited on a bear hunt near Onward, Mississippi. After days with no luck, his hosts cornered and tied up a small, exhausted black bear for him to shoot. Roosevelt refused, calling such a kill unsportsmanlike. The incident was captured in a political cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman, showing the president turning away from a cowering bear. The sketch quickly went viral by early 20th-century standards, appearing in newspapers across the nation.

Inspired by the cartoon, Brooklyn shop owners Morris and Rose Michtom created a stuffed toy bear and displayed it in their window as “Teddy’s Bear.” It was an instant sensation. By 1903, the couple had secured permission from Roosevelt to use his name and founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, one of America’s first mass toy manufacturers. Around the same time, the German company Steiff independently began producing stuffed bears, cementing the toy’s international appeal.

When the first “Teddy’s Bears” appeared in 1903, they stood out. Stuffed animals were not ordinary playthings, and newspapers noted both the novelty and the craze. Within months, shop windows from Brooklyn to St. Louis displayed the bears, and children proudly carried them under their arms. What began as a cartoon in the Washington Post had, almost overnight, turned into one of the most sought-after toys in America. Early bears from the 1900s are now rare treasures, sometimes commanding thousands of dollars at auction.

More than a century later, the teddy bear remains a cherished part of American life—handed down as keepsakes, gifted at milestones, and reimagined in countless styles. And yet, the story always returns to that day in 1902, when Theodore Roosevelt refused an unsportsmanlike kill. In sparing one frightened bear, Roosevelt inspired a toy that would comfort generations of children and become a household fixture around the world.