[Ads-l] Very Slight Antedating of "Teddy Bear"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Peter Reitan is posting on his excellent "Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog" a marvelous, thoroughly researched article about the origins of teddy bears; I'll leave it to him to announce that posting on ADS-L.

I do have a very slight (one day) improvement on his earliest citation for the term "teddy bear," a discovery made by Sam Clements of an ad in the Syracuse Post Standard, Nov. 20, 1905.  The same ad found by Sam ran a day earlier in another Syracuse newspaper:

1905 _Syracuse Herald_ 19 Nov. 7 (Fulton History)  (advt. for "McCarthy store") "Teddy" bears holding little cubs in their arms like real mothers are the latest arrivals; be sure to see them; see all other things as they come along, but most are already here.

Fred Shapiro


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