Posted on 08/24/2002 7:08:21 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
Tweed Roosevelt, great-grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, takes part in Teddy Bear Expo, marking the 100th year of the Teddy Bear in Washington Friday, Aug. 23, 2002. Roosevelt holds an original bear made in 1904, right, and a reproduction of the first Teddy Bear, introduced in 1902, at left. The Teddy Bear, with its link to Theodore Roosevelt, is easily the most popular presidential memento ever produced. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
Teddy Bear Celebrates Centennial
WASHINGTON (AP) - The teddy bear, inspired by the helpless bear a president refused to shoot, turns 100 this fall, still fuzzy-eared, huggable and loved by millions of children around the world.
Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear is easily the most popular presidential memento ever produced and the centennial celebrations have already begun.
Appearing on Friday at the Doll and Teddy Bear Expo here, Tweed Roosevelt, the 26th president's great grandson, said teddy bears have long been part of childhood for young members of the Roosevelt family.
Roosevelt, 60, is a Boston investment banker and a spokesman for the teddy bears produced by the Steiff Company, which has been making stuffed bears since 1903.
"I think that the teddy bear has come to represent all that's good about humans," Roosevelt said. "For a child it is a confidant that's entirely on the child's side. It's an honor to the Roosevelt family that we had a part of giving to the world this symbol of joy and solace."
The teddy bear's creation resulted from the accidental combination of a tethered bear in a Mississippi woods, news stories about the president's refusal to shoot it, and a cartoonist's eye for an arresting image.
As the end of 1902 approached, Roosevelt had completed a busy and successful first year in office and Republicans had breezed through the November elections. The president decided he deserved a break and a bear hunt seemed made to order.
Soon Roosevelt was clambering down from a private car on a railway siding in Mississippi in leather leggings, a blue flannel shirt, corduroy jacket and hobnail boots. He had a cartridge belt at his waist, a hunting knife on his hip and a favorite, custom-made rifle under his arm.
The president was clearly ready. But the bears were not.
As biographer Edmund Morris records in Theodore Rex, his account of the Roosevelt presidency, wherever an increasingly frustrated Roosevelt went in the deep woods the bears went elsewhere.
Finally, a pack of hunting dogs gave chase to a bear which lunged exhausted into a pond where a guide roped it and cracked it in the skull with a rifle butt.
The president was sent for. Here, finally, was a bear for him to shoot.
"He was both disappointed and upset, on reaching the pond, to find a stunned, bloody, mud-caked runt tied to a tree," Morris writes. "The bear was not much bigger than he. He refused to shoot. 'Put it out of its misery,' he said. Somebody dispatched it with a knife."
The hunt went on for three more days. Roosevelt never got a shot.
But back in Washington the newspaper stories of the president's sporting refusal to shoot a defenseless bear reached the desk of Clifford Berryman, then a cartoonist for The Washington Post.
Berryman sketched a small, bewildered, tethered bear, with the president turning away in disdain. The cartoon appeared on the front page of the Post on Nov. 16 over the caption, "Drawing the Line in Mississippi."
Readers took to the imagery at once, demanding more bear cartoons. Berryman obliged. Subsequent bears became "smaller, rounder and cuter." Soon Berryman was adding tiny big-eared bear cub mascots to every cartoon he drew.
Berryman, whose cartooning career was to extend into the Truman administration, described the cartoon beast as "a poor measly little cub with most of its fur rubbed off and ears like prickly pears."
"We have all been delighted with the little bear cartoons," Roosevelt wrote Berryman on Dec. 29, 1902.
The president's delight was widely shared. Soon people on both sides of the Atlantic saw commercial possibilities in the little bears.
In New York City, Rose Michtom, the wife of Brooklyn candy store owner Morris Michtom, made two stuffed toy bears. Her husband put them in his window at $1.50 each with a sign calling them "Teddy's Bears." Soon the stuffed bears were selling so briskly that the Michtoms, both Russian immigrants, established the Ideal Toy Company to keep up with demand.
Meanwhile, in Germany, toy manufacturer Margarete Steiff had added plush, stuffed, bear cubs to her line of stuffed elephants and other toy animals. Each had button eyes, long arms, movable joints and a distinctive button in an ear.
In 1903, a New York toy store ordered 3,000 Steiff bears. In 1907, the year teddy bear first appeared in a dictionary, the company sold 974,000. The teddy bear was on its way to becoming an essential of childhood. Steiff still sells more than 800,000 bears a year.
In 1904, the little bear became the mascot of Roosevelt's successful presidential campaign.
All of this had a touch of irony about it. The president disliked the nickname Teddy. Friends called him "Theodore."
But his fellow countrymen were far more informal. To them, the president was Teddy. And the little stuffed bear was "the teddy bear."
"I live with it every day. Look at the bags under my eyes. I don't sleep. I haven't shut my eyes more than two hours since a year ago July 6. It'll never be over in my mind. "I lay awake thinking of the pain those people endured. I hope someday they find it in their hearts to forgive me. I want to tell them, 'I cry every night over it - and you.' " Cindy Adams.
Fashion tip du jour: to prevent getting bags under the eyes, refrain from getting drunk, plowing into 16 bystanders with a luxury SUV and then leaving the scene.
EAST Hamptonites are trying to stop gay men from having alfresco sex in the secluded dunes of Two Mile Hollow beach. Residents’ complaints about men trespassing and urinating in the privately owned area of rolling coastline have spurred two meetings between community officials and gay rights organizers last week, reports the East Hampton Star. But the real story behind the complaints is the X-rated daylight sex-fests that most locals - gay and straight - are too shy to discuss. Page Six.
Some new ideas here. Good luck with it. ;-)
ONE OF the most down-to-earth women in show biz is Jamie Lee Curtis, who has struck a real chord posing in a little stunt for More magazine. She shows first her naked face and her body in a two-piece bathing suit, untouched by retouching. Then you see her after makeup, clothes and glamorous touches.
.... She wants you to feel better about yourselves. Real women aren't perfect, and actresses are simply "real women," too. So all you average Janes out there, remember - when you see a glamorous photo, just know that it took effort. You'll then have a really beautiful woman - Jamie Lee Curtis - to thank for getting "real." NY Post.
More on that whacky NY gubernatorial Dem primary race between Cuomo and McCall:
The Democratic race for governor was rocked yesterday when Carl McCall's running mate volunteered that he fathered two children with different women while still married to his first wife. Lieutenant governor candidate Dennis Mehiel said he was revealing the out-of-wedlock offspring to head off "distasteful" leaks to the press about them from opponent Andrew Cuomo's camp. "I have absolutely not one shred of doubt where this story came from," said Mehiel, 60, a multimillionaire businessman from Westchester County.
read the whole story in the Ny Daily News.
The studmuffin in question.
Well, you can count on me to be sitting on the edge of my chair for this one.
Well shucks. I had such high hopes for the secrets of eternal youth.
The kids don't start school until September, so I still have them here. Many schools in Maryland started today.
Nothing more to report. Now I'm going to read some posts and threads.
My house is so quiet, I love it!
Oh be quiet! Go ahead and rub it in, LOL,LOL. I remember those days. This morning I decided to let Mr T sleep in. I took the doggie outside thur the basement sliding door. I told the boys to keep it quiet. It wasn't the boys I had to worry about. It was the doggies. They were full of fire today! The 2 little ones decided they were going to play "WWE" and they proceeded to growel, bark, run, play westle all over the house. I'm looking at 2 very tierd and worn out puppies right now, LOL,LOL. Needless to say, they woke Mr T up, as we all watched them play. We had a good laugh at them.
Donna Hanover and her daughter, Caroline, 13, attended a New York Liberty game recently, each arriving in a city car with her own detective detail. After the game, Hanover left with her detail while Caroline took off with hers for New England. Guess who paid for gas and tolls?
It's been eight months since Rudolph Giuliani left City Hall. In the past year, he's earned literally millions of dollars from speeches he's given about the World Trade Center attack. Hanover's divorce settlement six weeks ago was for $6.8 million.
So why are Hanover, Caroline, Andrew, Giuliani, his mother and his girlfriend, Judy, still receiving round-the-clock police protection in numbers that exceed those of Mayor Michael Bloomberg? And why, despite the millions of dollars Giuliani and Hanover each have, are New Yorkers paying for it?
So far, no one has been forthcoming with answers, including how many detectives are in the details and at what cost to taxpayers.
full story at Newsday.
What is it with these politicians (regardless of party affiliation) who seem to believe the taxpayers owe them a life of luxury?
Morning all! It's been one of those days and it's only half over.
Good news! The car is getting new motor mounts today (JL, you'll appreciate this part) and they're free! (whatever motor mounts are?) Mr. B is all excited about this. Our mechanic is replacing the recently new mounts at no cost to us. Yea! There are still good guys in the world.
Fstcwgrl and I went to see the movie Signs yesterday. It was great! We laughed, we cried, we were scared senseless! It was very good story and thought provoking. Signs is back up to #1 this weekend. I would tell you more but I don't want to give any of it away.
Welcome Motherbear! Glad you found us and I will add you to our ping list, so look for us on your comment page.
Mr. B is working from home today and will need the computer, so I'll start another thread in case I can't get back for the rest of the day. Back soon.
Nah, we have to keep an eye on what the shills are shilling.
That's a great story about McCall! I hope hillary gets heartburn everytime she has to say Gov. Pataki.
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