February 15, 1903

On this day in 1903, the teddy bear was born when Morris Michtom and his wife Rose placed two stuffed bears in the window of their Brooklyn shop window. Michtom sent a stuffed bear to President Theodore Roosevelt and asked for his permission to use his nickname, Teddy, for the dolls after a 1902 political cartoon depicted Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear while on a hunting trip in Mississippi. The sign along side the dolls in the window read “Teddy’s bear.” The toys were an instant sensation and Michtom started the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

Clifford Berryman's political cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt's bear hunting trip to Mississippi that gave the teddy bear its name. This is one of several cartoons he drew of the same event.