Cabbage Patch Kids. Beanie Babies. But before all of them came the teddy bear. The original fad toy rocketed to fame at the turn of the twentieth century. Here in Tacoma, teddy bears proved as popular, and controversial, as anywhere else in the nation.
President Teddy Roosevelt’s Bear Arrives On Tacoma Shelves
Looking back, it seems surprising that toy bears became popular. Bears are wild and dangerous animals, not cute and cuddly. But when New York City Russian Jewish immigrant businessman Morris Michtom saw a political cartoon of President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt refusing to shoot a chained bear while hunting in 1902, he decided that bears could make great toys. His “Teddy’s Bear” proved a hit.
It took some time for toy bears to reach the Tacoma market. While Rhodes Brothers Department Store listed them among its 1906 Christmas gift suggestions “for the baby,” ads for teddy bears don’t show up in Tacoma newspapers until 1907.
“The ‘Teddy Bears’ have arrived,” announced Shoenfelds’ Department Store on September 5 in the Tacoma Daily News. Selling for only 89 cents, the bear “of national reputation is the most droll and widely popular toy invention of the present day, and every child in Tacoma should have one.” The bears, they promised, were ready to “amuse” kids with their odd “pranks and grotesque ways.”
Within weeks, all of Tacoma’s major stores were selling teddies. By the holidays, Rhodes Brothers was bragging that they had the best selection of teddy bears in the Northwest. Their bears came in eight, ten, twelve, fifteen, and eighteen-inch sizes. Some could even grunt!
Teddy bears were so popular that their image began to decorate other items for children, such as bearskin coats, blankets, hats, pillowcases, and purses. Songs like “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” became national hits.
Christmas 1907 proved to be an excellent year for teddies. The Arcade Store decorated its showroom window with a display of teddy bears climbing toy trees and performing acrobatic tricks. A chained four-month-old live Kodiak bear cub completed the scene. The poor animal ultimately destroyed the display.
People could not get enough of the bears. “Judging from advance sales,” the Tacoma Daily News reported on December 14, “the teddy bear is as popular as ever, notwithstanding the attacks of theorists.”
A Controversial Teddy Bear?
How could anyone object to something so cute and cuddly? Teddies were only toys after all. But some outspoken community leaders called teddy bears a menace to society. Tacoma newspapers reprinted attacks against the bear from across the country. These “theorists” argued that playing with bears instead of dolls destroyed little girls’ developing maternal instincts and even promoted “race suicide,” an (obviously) racist idea. These theorists had even worse things to say about grown women who owned them, but nothing about little boys who liked teddies.
The editors of the Tacoma Daily News were not convinced. On August 10, 1907, they disputed these ideas. The teddy bear, they argued, was no different from the classic Noah’s Ark toy in its depiction of nature. “Why raise such a clamor over the Teddy bear?” they demanded, “What is there sacred about the doll of antiquity? Why should it be retained and a substitute denounced? It is a trait of childhood to delight in animals or representations of them. It is doubtful whether the maternal instinct was ever aroused or developed by a doll, and if it is, the Teddy bear will answer the same purpose. [A few] Preachers may preach against it, and [some] sewing teachers may talk of placing it ‘under the ban,’ but the Teddy bear will not be banished until children cease to like it.”
The public showed no signs of doing that anytime soon. The YMCA “Golds” girls basketball team made a large yellow teddy their mascot in December 1907. That same month, the Glide Rink declared December 21 “Teddy Bear Day” and held a drawing for a large bear. A teddy bear was a coveted prize at community picnics and kids’ sporting events.
Long Live the Teddy Bear
Despite the teddy bear’s ongoing popularity, some people remained eager to declare the bear’s death. While Tacoma shops had sold more teddies than ever during the 1907 Christmas shopping season—Rhodes even had to telegraph an order for 2,000 more bears during the holiday rush—merchants thought that the bubble had finally burst. The fad must be over!
But not so fast…
Sales of the bear declined, but remained steady even after Roosevelt left office. The bear met its first challenger in 1909, “Billy Possum.” Toy possums hit the market after the recently elected President William Taft enjoyed a possum dinner in Georgia.
Billys were even sold in Tacoma. “Have you got a Billy Possum?” Peoples store asked Tacoma Daily Ledger readers on June 2, 1909. “It beats the Teddy Bear.” Knowing that customers weren’t giving up, the Stone-Fisher Company marketed their 18-cent toy table and chair set as suitable for Billy Possum and his “friend,” the Teddy Bear, for Christmas 1909.
But while Billy Possum has ended up largely forgotten by history, the little teddy bear has proved tenacious. Even the most skeptical at the turn of the century were forced to admit this. “It is true,” conceded the Tacoma Daily News on December 22, 1910, “that there is no substitute for the Teddy bear.”
That has continued to be proved the case, even over a century later. And while I always loved my dolls as a kid, “Bearly”—a scrappy leftover Christmas decoration—was always my favorite toy.
