Random Stuffed Animal Generator

History of Stuffed Animals

While the modern stuffed toy dates back to the late 1800s, the first true stuffed toys were created in Roman times, with the creation of rag dolls. These dolls were made of fabric scraps and filled with more of the same or straw by poor children who couldn't afford expensive wooden carvings. Some of these dolls have been dated as late as 300 BC.

Modern Stuffed Toys
In 1880, Margarete Steiff began producing stuffed elephants using a pattern she found in a magazine. She sold them as pincushions, but quickly began manufacturing them as toys when she noticed children playing with them. Within 6 years, she had sold over 5,000, and by the 1890s, her company was producing a variety of stuffed animals including dogs, cats, and pigs, most of which she designed herself.
In 1902, the then American president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt went on a hunting trip, and after hunting for days, eventually spared a bear cub rather than shooting it. The Washington post immortalized the story in a cartoon, which was then made even more famous when a shop owner known as Morris Michtom, who had already duplicated the Steiff stuffed toys in his shop, saw the bear. He made a plush version and named it the Teddy Bear. Shortly after in the same year, the Steiff company began producing Teddy Bears as well, and an icon was born.


NOTE: By the way, even though the images seem similar in size, no two have the same pixel dimensions!