teddy bear
A teddy bear , even Teddy or regional Knuddelbär , is a popular stuffed animal . It is a stylized, fluffy miniature replica of a bear with mostly brown, beige or golden fur; the size varies from the size of the palm of the hand to models about one meter high. The inside is filled with cotton , wood wool , plastic granulate or other materials. Originally it was purely a children's toy, but today teddy bears are also collected by adults.
history
There are two different genesis stories about the invention of the teddy bear, one German and one American.
German version
There is evidence that Richard Steiff , a nephew of the German toy manufacturer Margarete Steiff , developed the first plush bear with movable arms and legs, the model 55 PB, in Giengen an der Brenz in 1902 . This was sent to the USA in early 1903, but did not reach the customers there and was therefore sent back to Germany.
Then Margarete Steiff exhibited the PB 55 at her booth in Leipzig, where she mainly offered her felted pin cushions. After the presentation in the “Welt von Steiff” , a museum of the company in Giengen, an American representative who needed a “souvenir souvenir” at the last minute bought this bear. However, the recipient should not have liked the bear, whereupon it was given away. Finally he was noticed in the window of a shop by the secretary of US President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt , a passionate bear hunter, who bought it as a decoration for Roosevelt's daughter's birthday table. She was so taken with the bear that she named him "Teddy" after her father.
The bear became increasingly popular, so that an American representative ordered 3,000 teddy bears from the Steiff company at the Leipzig spring fair in 1903, which, according to another version of the story, were used as table decorations on a table of the president, whereupon one of the guests is said to have exclaimed: " Those are Teddy's bears! "
American version
Even after the American version of the story of its origin, the teddy bear was named after Theodore Roosevelt. According to this, the President, a passionate hunter, did not get an opportunity to shoot a bear while hunting in Mississippi in 1902. When members of his hunting party then put a tethered bear cub in front of the shotgun, he refused to shoot it. However, it was killed with a hunting knife by his hunting companion John M. Parker , the governor of Louisiana .
Clifford K. Berryman, a cartoonist for the Washington Post , captured the incident in a drawing. Since he used the bear in other caricatures , it quickly became a symbol for the president. Inspired by these cartoons, Russian immigrant Morris Michtom and his wife Rose made a bear to decorate the window of their Brooklyn store . Roosevelt is said to have given them written permission to call him "Teddy's bear". The wholesale company Butler Brothers ensured a strong demand for the children's toys. The Michtoms then founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company in 1903 and also created a jointed teddy bear. September 9th is celebrated as Teddy Bear Day in the USA.
Special teddy bears as collectibles and art objects
A worldwide collector 's scene has developed around Steiff teddy bears . Among other things, there are club memberships and subscriptions to purchase one copy from a limited annual model. There are special magazines, such as TEDDYS Kreativ or BärReport , which are tailored to artists, creative people and hobbyists as well as collectors.
There is now a worldwide collector's scene for so-called artist teddy bears . These teddy bears are usually unique pieces. They are designed, manufactured and mostly sold directly in online shops and at trade fairs by the artists. They are made of high quality materials such as mohair , alpaca or viscose . Besides Germany, there are strong artistic scenes in Russia , Japan , the United Kingdom and the Netherlands .
The largest teddy bear comes from the Martin Bären company in Sonneberg . It is 5.40 meters high and is in the German Teddy Bear Museum in Sonneberg. Even the smallest teddy bear in the world comes from Germany. It measures only 5 millimeters, but is fully articulated despite its tiny size. It was sewn by Bettina Kaminski from Reinfeld . The tiny creature, dubbed “Mini the Pooh” by the press, is on permanent display in the “A World in Miniature” museum in Carlisle .
measure up
The " Teddybär total " fair takes place annually in Münster (Westphalia) and presents a large number of foreign artists. Another major trade fair, the "Teddy Bear World" in Wiesbaden , focuses on German artists. There are also international trade fairs such as “Hello Teddy!” In Moscow , the JTBA Convention in Tokyo , TeddyLand in Kiev and Hugglets in London .
Manufacturing steps
Cutting out the parts
Sewing and turning
To fill
Assembly
psychology
Children use a teddy bear as a cuddly toy . In the child's playful world, analogous to other play figures, he is brought to life and experienced as a being that is entrusted to the child on the one hand and that acts as the child's protector on the other. This explains why children look after and look after their teddy bear. On the other hand, they need their teddy bear in order to experience a certain security when they are unsure or alone. In this way, the teddy bear serves as a transitional object for the projection of expectations and longings. In a certain phase of development, these early childhood ideas must then be removed; however, infantile tendencies can persist even in adults . Adults associate memories of their childhood with a teddy bear or they see teddy bears as a collector's item.
Pollutants
Industrially manufactured teddy bears can be dangerous and in many cases are contaminated with pollutants such as nonylphenols , formaldehyde , nickel or plasticizers . Since children who have not yet reached the age of three like to put their toys in their mouths, this can lead to the transmission of harmful substances and, in the worst case, even to cancer .
biology
The belittling of cuddly toys, which can hardly be avoided, sometimes resulted in the wrong assignment of other animal species to the bear family due to external similarities. The following can be clearly distinguished:
- Bear - here the toy cuddly animals are particularly similar to the young brown bear.
- Little panda , also known as the cat bear, which, unlike the giant panda, is not a bear and has not yet been definitively classified.
- Koala , also called the ash-gray pouch bear or eucalyptus bear , is an arboreal marsupial mammal in Australia. He is not a bear, but an Australian marsupial that inhabits eucalyptus trees.
See also
- Muhdose : built-in instrument for generating a growling or tilting voice
- German Teddy Foundation
literature
- Bernd Brunner: A Brief History of the Bears. Claassen, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-546-00395-7 .
- Jürgen and Marianne Cieslik: Ciesliks Teddybär-Lexikon Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien, Cieslik, Jülich 1998, ISBN 978-3-921844-51-9 .
- Jürgen and Marianne Cieslik: Steiff teddy bears - a love for life Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien, 1995, ISBN 978-3-921844-39-7 .
- Pauline Cockrill: 100 Years of Teddybears (original title: The Teddybear Encyclopedia , translated by Ursula Bischoff), Coventgarden, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-8310-9007-6 .
- Wolfgang Froese, Daniel Hentschel: The great Teddy Hermann book Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien, 2008, ISBN 978-3-87463-415-1 .
- Daniel Hentschel: Steiff bears under the microscope Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien, 2012, ISBN 978-3-939806-60-8 .
- Christel Pistorius, Rolf Pistorius: Teddy turns 100. The most beautiful and popular teddy bears . Kunstverlag Weingarten, Weingarten 2002, ISBN 3-8170-1025-7 (About collecting teddy bears. Brief portraits of the most important German teddy manufacturers).
- Christel Pistorius, Rolf Pistorius: Mecki, Zotty and their friends Wellhausen & Marquardt Medien, 1995, ISBN 978-3-939806-39-4 .
- Günther Pfeiffer: Steiff range 1892–1943 . ISBN 3-9804712-3-3 .
- Günther Pfeiffer: Steiff range 1947–2003 . ISBN 3-9804712-4-1 .
- Monica Schleich: Sewing teddy bears yourself OZ creativ, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8410-6193-5 .
Web links
- Vienna Teddy Bear Museum
- TEDDYS creative magazine
- What does politics have to do with cuddly toys? (Knowledge before 8 - DasErste.de)
- German Teddy Bear Museum Sonneberg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Toys: Alarm in the children's room , Stiftung Warentest, October 21, 2010 (accessed online on February 26, 2013)