Teddy History

In November of 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Mississippi while trying to settle a boundary dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana. Being an accomplished outdoorsman, he liked to bag big game.

However, his hunt was going poorly that day, and he couldn’t seem to find anything worthy of discharging his rifle. His staff, trying to accommodate him, captured a Louisiana black bear cub for the President to shoot, but he could not. The thought of shooting a bear that was tied to a tree did not seem sporting, so he spared the life of the black bear cub and set it free.

A famous political cartoonist for the Washington Star, Mr. Clifford Berryman, drew a cartoon titled, "Drawing the Line in Mississippi" which used the story of the President refusing to shoot the bear as a metaphor for how he dealt with the boundary dispute.

The cartoon became famous throughout Washington and was reprinted nationally, sparking the imagination of toy manufacturer Morris Michtom of Brooklyn, N.Y. He asked for and received President Roosevelt’s permission to use his name for the hand-sewn bears that he and his wife made, and the "Teddy Bear" was born!