Morris Michtom
Michtom in New York
BornSeptember 12, 1869
Russia
DiedJuly 21, 1938(1938-07-21) (aged 68)
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation(s)Inventor, businessman
SpouseRose
ChildrenEmily (1897-1986) and Joseph (1890-1951)


Morris Michtom (September 12, 1869 – July 21, 1938)[1][2] was a Russian-born businessman and inventor who, with his wife Rose, also a Russian Jewish immigrant who lived in Brooklyn, came up with the idea for the teddy bear in 1902[3] around the same time as Richard Steiff in Germany. They founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company which, after Michtom's death, became the largest doll-making company in the United States.

Biography

A 1902 political cartoon in The Washington Post spawned the teddy bear name.

Michtom was born into a Jewish family[4][3] on September 12, 1869, and immigrated to New York in 1887, when he also married his wife, Rose Katz (1867-1937), who was born in Romania. He sold candy in his shop at 404 Tompkins Avenue[5] in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn by day and made stuffed animals with his wife Rose at night.

The teddy bear was inspired by a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman depicting American president Theodore Roosevelt—commonly called "Teddy"—having compassion for a bear at the end of an unsuccessful hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Michtom saw the drawing and created a tiny plush bear cub which he sent to Roosevelt. Michtom put a plush bear in the shop window with a sign "Teddy's bear." After the creation of the bear in 1902, the sale of the bears was so brisk that in 1907 Michtom created the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.[6]

Michtom died in Brooklyn, New York on the July 21, 1938, at the age of 68.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stephanie Bernardo Johns (1981). The ethnic almanac. Doubleday. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-385-14143-7. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  2. ↑ The Rubber age. Palmerton Pub. Co. 1938. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Rose and Morris Michtom and the Invention of the Teddy Bear". American Jewish Historical Society. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
  4. ↑ Lawrence J. Epstein (2007). At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880-1920. p. 138. ISBN 9780787986223.
  5. ↑ SAVE BEDFORD STUYVESANT: The Teddy Bear was born in Bedford Stuyvesant. Savebedfordstuyvesant.blogspot.com (2009-04-02). Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  6. ↑ True story of the Teddy Bear by The Theodore Roosevelt Association. Theodoreroosevelt.org. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.


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