The Ideal Toy Company in New York created a plush version of the bear that Roosevelt refused to kill. They called it “Teddy’s bear,” later shortened to teddy bear. In 2002, when the teddy ...

The company brought its plush bears to the United States in 1902, about the same time Theodore Roosevelt, who took over the nation's highest political office after the 1901 assassination of ...

In November 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was on a bear hunting excursion ... most notably in Germany, where plush toymaker Margarete Steiff peddled bears, elephants, and other animals.