Morris Michtom

Morris Michtom
Born 1870
Russia
Died July 21, 1938 (aged 67–68)
Nationality American
Occupation Inventor, businessman
Religion Judaism
Spouse(s) Rose
Children Emily (1897-1986)
A 1902 political cartoon in The Washington Post spawned the Teddy bear name.

Morris Michtom (1870 – July 21, 1938)[1][2] was a Russian Jewish immigrant, who with his wife Rose invented the Teddy Bear.[3]

Michtom, who arrived in New York in 1887, was selling candy in his shop at 404 Tompkins Avenue[4] in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn by day and making stuffed animals with his wife Rose at night. The Teddy Bear came about in response to a cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman depicting Teddy Roosevelt having compassion for a bear at the end of an unsuccessful hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. After the creation of the bear in 1902, the sale of the bears was so brisk that Michtom created the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company.[5]

Personal life

Morris' daughter Emily appeared as a background character in over 40 episodes of the American television program Get Smart. [6]

References

  1. ↑ Stephanie Bernardo Johns (1981). The ethnic almanac. Doubleday. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-385-14143-7. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  2. ↑ The Rubber age. Palmerton Pub. Co. 1938. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
  3. ↑ "Rose and Morris Michtom and the Invention of the Teddy Bear". American Jewish Historical Society. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
  4. ↑ SAVE BEDFORD STUYVESANT: The Teddy Bear was born in Bedford Stuyvesant. Savebedfordstuyvesant.blogspot.com (2009-04-02). Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  5. ↑ True story of the Teddy Bear by The Theodore Roosevelt Association. Theodoreroosevelt.org. Retrieved on 2011-10-01.
  6. ↑ Cree, Graeme. "The Aunt Rose Files," The Bob and Ray Overstocked Surplus Warehouse. Accessed Dec. 26, 2014.