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

[Peter Reitan]

I saw the same, slight antedating item Fred Shapiro mentioned, but read it as 18 November - although the date was not clear to me - it could be 14 or 19, for all I know.  It was at least earlier than 20 November 1905.

As Fred noted, the "Teddy Bear" discussions on ADS-L prompted me to do my own investigation into the origins of Teddy Bear.  I did not antedate the November 1905 "Teddy Bear," but looked at the apparent 3 year gap between the event the everyone says inspired the name, "Teddy Bear" (November 1902), and the earliest example in print.  What I found, were even older associations between Teddy Roosevelt and bears.  There were even real, live bears named "Teddy" or "Theodore" in zoos in New York and DC before he was even President.  That, and the less common alternative name for Teddy Bears, "Johnny Bears," taken from an illustrated children's story published in 1900.  There is a writer who wrote the definitive history of Teddy Bears in 2002, who interviewed the descendants of the two families who may or may not have made the first "Teddy Bears" - she did not solve the question of who was first.  I have tried making contact with her to see whether she has information about earlier uses of "Teddy Bear," but I have not hear back from her.

It's all in my blog: Teddy Roosevelt and his Bears.

I also did a brief piece about lingerie "teddies": Bears, Bunnies, Blue and Lace, which includes the little known stuffed rabbit named for Roosevelt's daughter, Alice, the color "Alice Blue," also named after his daughter, and the "Teddy Bear" combinations and chemises, later called, simply, "teddies."



> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 02:22:55 +0000
> From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Very Slight Antedating of "Teddy Bear"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Very Slight Antedating of "Teddy Bear"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Peter Reitan is posting on his excellent "Early Sports and Pop Culture Hist=
> ory Blog" a marvelous, thoroughly researched article about the origins of t=
> eddy 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 Syr=
> acuse Post Standard, Nov. 20, 1905.  The same ad found by Sam ran a day ear=
> lier in another Syracuse newspaper:
> 
> 1905 _Syracuse Herald_ 19 Nov. 7 (Fulton History)  (advt. for "McCarthy sto=
> re") "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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