Saying Goodbye to a Queen on a Toy Throne

HEY, THERE!

It’s the second week in Beartober and I’m taking a fashion detour with this quote:

The teddy bears’ instant language is expression because a bear - simply being a bear  - doesn’t make it magical. 

Not without connection. 

Connection is the secret sauce of friendships that are people AND plushie powered. 

And it starts with a needle and thread. 

The pair can help you make a bear. But more importantly, the duo shapes its personality. 

WHO it becomes in your hands is key to turning a Basic Bear into one with Pooh personality and charm. 

 What’s en vogue in today’s issue:

• How the bear became a WHO and dethroned the toy queen 

• What a difference an expression makes 

• Building up your Comfort Capital

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EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO REVISION   

Be it a celebrity’s status. 

A marriage.

New Year’s resolutions. 

Feelings.

Even luck. 

Few, however, saw the teddy bear dethroning the toy industry’s queen:  

The Doll. 

“From all quarters of the globe comes the demand for Teddy bears, with poor Miss Dolly gazing wofully out of her wide open eyes powerless to prevent the slipping away of her power.”

So said the article, “DOLLS ARE OUT, BEARS ARE IN: NEW PETS STEAL AWAY THE HEARTS OF SMALL GIRLS,” published Sunday, November 4, 1906, in New York’s The Sun newspaper. 

“It would be safe to say that no matter what sort of toy was first made, a doll must surely have been the second.“

“The reign of the doll has been extended over every country, savage and civilized, since any records exist of toys.”

Next came the numbers, which were a study in less is more. 

The bears came in two sizes: Large or small

And two colors: White or cinnamon 

A small bear, largely a product of Germany, cost a hefty $1 compared to 98 cents for “a doll of good size,” the article said. 

Miss Dolly was American made, with “a head of sand and glue and a body of cotton, excelsior, or mayhap sawdust.” 

“But the Teddy bear has a lovely soft, furry coat, which one can rub one’s cheeks against contentedly, or which one’s finger’s stroke delightedly,” the article said.

“Perhaps it was because of this warm coat that the Teddy bear won his way straight to childish hearts.” 

When one little girl “whose arms hugged her treasure tightly,” was asked why she loved her bear more than her doll, she quickly replied: 

Unlike the other bears that had been on the market for years. 

“None of them possessed that particularly funny expression which later served to make the Teddy Bear a hit.” 

So declared the “News From Toyland” column, published Tuesday, December 20, 1910, in Montana’s The Daily Missoulian.

Those first bears, devoid of names, had all the stature and ferocity of their real-life, NatGeo muses. 

So WHEN, exactly, did this WHAT become a who? 

1902. 

The United Mine Workers of America were on strike, demanding better pay and an end to marathon shifts. 

In public, the coal industry scoffed.

Back in the office, though? 

Leaders said Bring it with both hands rubbed and at the ready for the pay day.

See, pre-strike, the industry’s profits were low while coal supply stayed high. Leaders couldn’t pause production legally, but a strike was the next best thing. 

Workers dropped their pick axes for the picket line and cut the coal supply, driving up demand AND the price. 

With no wages to pay, industry profits stacked.

It wasn’t the raise workers had in mind and both sides sat in their feelings. 

What simmered in Spring, blazed through Summer and threatened a very real and deadly winter without coal. Someone had to tap in.

Enter Teddy. 

Roosevelt. 

Mr. President, to you and me.

His move it or lose it mentality, backed by threats to send in federal troops to take over, finally led to a deal in October. 

You know, when temperatures used to turn crisp and stay there on the way down to winter lows? 

In the end, Teddy took the win, followed by a vacation. 

SPONSORED 
A HUGGABLE KIND OF SELF-CARE

Here is straight fact:  

1 in 3 adults sleep with a bear.

Well, it’s not because of this plushie’s pillow-like qualities alone. 

Bears relieve stress and anxiety in people of ALL ages and their comforting superpowers help you sleep better. 

Making a bear is meditative, too. 

A mind and body connection forms when you run thread through a needle and sew . . .

Stitch by stitch by stitch. 

The repetition grounds you in the present, keeping you out of your head and the swirling vortexes of the past or future. 

In short, bear making is the self-care you didn’t know you needed. 

Get the full story when you subscribe to Goodbye, Zombie Bear! Make A Teddy Bear With Heart. 

The private podcast also squashes the assumptions about who can or should make a bear. You know, the ones that say you’re not creative enough, need a fancy sewing machine or you’re too old.

Click here for the next step to huggable health care. 

WE’RE GOING TO CATCH A BIG ONE

Mississippi’s then governor Andrew Longino invited the president on a bear hunt. 

But let’s call it what it was: a political strategy in a post Civil War re-election year. 

Roosevelt, a Democrat, was popular. 

Longino, the first governor elected in his state who wasn’t a Confederate veteran, needed that pull because he was running against the past. 

What does all this have to do with teddy bears?

Everything. 

Bear with me because the birth of the teddy bear is thanks to a 1902 meme that was made into merch by a candy maker’s wife. 

At least, that’s the American take. 

Germany’s Steiff family stakes their own claim with the headline, We are the inventors of the teddy bear, on the history page of their website. 

But I digress. 

Let’s get back to the event that inspired two people, nations apart, to build an  irresistible bear in a nod to the 1900-version of a viral moment.  

While on the hunt, Roosevelt couldn’t locate a single bear. His assistants then cornered a black bear and tied it to a tree for the President to kill.

He, a big game hunter, refused. It would unsportsmanlike.

Word spread as stories do in print or digital eras. 

Clifford K. Berryman put his spin the happenings with a political cartoon published in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902.

Brooklyn candy shop owner Morris Michtom, who also made stuffed animals with his wife, Rose, saw the cartoon as an opportunity:  

Honor the president. Make a product. Build a business.  

Thus, a wild animal, sketched with a “funny expression,” lost its edge and turned into Teddy’s bear. 

This huggable WHO built Michtom’s Ideal Toy Company and changed the world’s notion of what a “toy” could be.

EXPRESSION LEADS TO CONNECTION

Teddy’s bears were loved out loud then as children and women proudly carried them in public.

See, the right bear.

A connected bear.

An irresistible bear becomes part of your emotional legacy. It meets you where you are whether you’re 4, 14, or 44.

Every hug,

Every laugh, 

Every prayer whispered in the night builds Comfort Capital you can draw from and the combination sets a tone for life.