HISTORY ...

In 1902 President Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Mississippi. As reported in the Washington Post, the presidential hunting party trailed and lassoed a lean, black bear, then tied it to a tree. The president was summoned, but when he arrived on the scene he refused to shoot the tied and exhausted bear, considering it to be unsportsmanlike.
The following day, November 16, Clifford Berryman, Washington Post editorial cartoonist, immortalized the incident as part of a front-page cartoon montage. Berryman pictured Roosevelt, his gun before him with the butt resting on the ground and his back to the animal, gesturing his refusal to take the trophy shot. Written across the lower part of the cartoon were the words "Drawing the Line in Mississippi," which coupled the hunting incident to a political dispute.
The cartoon drew immediate attention. In Brooklyn, NY, shopkeeper Morris Michtom displayed 2 toy bears in the window of his Stationery and novelty store. The bears had been made by his wife, Rose from plush stuffed excelsior and finished with black shoe button eyes. Michtom recognized the immediate popularity of the new toy, requested and received permission from Roosevelt himself to call them "Teddy's Bears."
The little stuffed bears were a success. As demand for them increased, Michtom moved his business to a loft, under the name of the Ideal Novelty and Toy Corporation.

At the same time Margarete Steiff, a disabled German seamstress with a soft toy factory in Giengen, had added a soft plush bear to the Steiff catalogue. Steiff made her toy bears from sketches of bears at the local zoo, provided by her nephew.   In 1903 these bears were displayed at the Leipzig Trade Fair which resulted in an American buyer placing an order for 3,000  bears.  By the end of that year, the order had increased to 12,000 bears and in 1907, the Steiff Company sold over 1,000,000 toys.

For collectors very early Steiff bears, with their hump backs, long snouts, large tapered feet and elongated arms with curved paws, are the most sought-after.