As a young woman, Mary Lorang studied clothing design in New York City. When she was twenty-five, she married a salesman named Hans Meyer. Four years later in 1933 they decided to put their talents together. Mary and Hans began to design, manufacture, and sell tomato and animal pin cushions along with dolls. After several years they added stuffed toys. While Mary was designing and overseeing a very small production staff, Hans was on the road selling. In the ...

The teddy bear got its name from a hunting story that included US President Theodore Roosevelt, known as Teddy, and a Black Bear on a hunting expedition in Mississippi in the November 1902. From that hunting trip the Washington Post newspaper showed a cartoon of a small Black bear cub and that was the birth of the Teddy Bear. A couple in Brooklyn, NY made a stuffed toy that resembled the newspaper cartoon and sold it in their candy store and furthered the ...