Margarethe Steiff

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Margarete Steiff (24 July 1847 – 9 May 1909) was a German seamstress who in 1880 founded Margarete Steiff GmbH, more widely known as Steiff, a maker of toy stuffed animals. Born in Giengen, Kingdom of Württemberg, Margarete contracted polio as a child, leaving her with both legs paralyzed and pain in her right arm. After training as a seamstress, she was able to raise enough money to purchase a sewing machine by teaching people to play the zither. She began making clothes, eventually opening her own store in 1877. Around this time, Margarete came across a sewing pattern for a toy elephant, as well as patterns for mice and rabbits. Using felt and lambswool, Margarete made many of these toys as gifts for friends, and later began to sell some. Proving popular, the scale of production steadily increased, as did the variety of toys. In 1902, the company began making a toy bear with moveable joints based on a design by her nephew, Richard Steiff. Taking off in the United States, it was nicknamed after then-U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, becoming the first "teddy bear".