History of American Stuffed Toys

Stuffed toys come in all shapes and sizes.

Stuffed toys are classics in America. Babies receive them as gifts, older children sleep with them for security and sweethearts exchange them on Valentine's Day. Before enjoying immense popularity and being embellished in the recent past with voice boxes and motion sensors, the first stuffed toys developed from modest beginnings.

Rag Dolls

The first stuffed toys were likely rag dolls. These were typically homemade creations of scrap cloth with features printed on the cloth or painted on with oils. Early dolls were stuffed with cloth, sawdust or straw. Companies began producing rag dolls commercially around 1850.

Because they were inexpensive and unbreakable, rag dolls endured more wear than more expensive toys of the time. That's why you'll find very few of them today. The ones that survived provide a clue to the fashion and social norms of the past.

Margarete Steiff

Rag dolls were soon replaced in prominence by stuffed animals, thanks in part to Margarete Steiff, a German seamstress. Steiff, diagnosed with polio at a young age, made elephant-shaped pincushions to give as gifts to her friends and family in 1879. They became so popular that she made extras for retail sales. As it turned out, children enjoyed playing with the fun-shaped sewing accessories, and by 1893, Steiff's toy creations enjoyed more sales than her clothing.

Teddy Bears

Lots of companies created "Teddy's Bears," but Steiff's remained the most prominent.

The Steiff company added stuffed bears to its toy line in 1892 and, in 1903, sold 3,000 bears to Hermann Berg, a representative of New York's Geo. Borgfelt & Co. The Steiffs were disappointed in the demand in the United States.

At around the same time, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt went hunting in Mississippi, but was unable to bag anything. One of the president's hosts captured a bear cub and tied it to a tree to ensure that Roosevelt would get a kill on his outing. Roosevelt decided against killing the helpless cub, and a cartoonist for the Washington Post immortalized "Teddy's Bear" in a cartoon. American toymakers, most notably the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co. in Brooklyn, began making stuffed bears. But the Steiff bears had already created a name for themselves as being the first.

According to Funding Universe, "unit sales of the bears tripled to 12,000 by the end of 1904 and increased to almost one million worldwide by 1907."

Past Favorites

Stuffed toys have enjoyed time as fads throughout the years. Raggedy Ann is probably the most recognizable rag doll. American writer Johnny Gruelle created the doll for his daughter in 1915 and later wrote a series of stories featuring the character with red yarn hair and a triangle nose.

Cabbage Patch Kids were most popular in the 1980s. These plastic-faced stuffed dolls featured adoption certificates.

Despite their simplicity, Beanie Babies created a stir in the 1990s. Ty Inc. launched a line of cute stuffed animals. The company stopped producing Beanie Babies in 1999, but started back in 2000 due to consumer demand.

Toys and Technology

Toy manufacturers combine children's toys and technology.

The arrival of the 21st century brought with it a new trend: pairing classic stuffed animals with technology. Store shelves are full of simple stuffed animals, but most of them now include an access code to bring your pet to life in a virtual world online. Webkinz, Petz and Build-A-Bear pets have all been top sellers that combine technology with children's toys of the past.

References

• The Connecticut Doll Artists: Doll FAQs
• Teddy Bear Artists: History of the Teddy Bear
• Funding Universe

Resources

• Steiff