No, Theodore Roosevelt did not invent the teddy bear. Toy makers did, after Roosevelt refused to shoot a tied black bear on a Mississippi hunt in November 1902.
His part was the story, plus a nickname he never much liked. The cartoon, the toy, and the craze came from other people. Our teddy bear history from the 1902 hunt onward covers that sequence.
The myths around Roosevelt and bears keep growing, though. We checked five common ones against the National Park Service, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, and Roosevelt’s own writing.
- Roosevelt invented the teddy bear. False.
- He earned money from the toy. False.
- He spared the tied bear’s life. False.
- A bear lived in the Roosevelt White House. Unproven. The family did own a bear.
- He gave up bear hunting after 1902. False.
Myth 1: Teddy Roosevelt Invented the Teddy Bear
Roosevelt never designed, sewed, or sold a toy bear. The National Park Service credits Rose and Morris Michtom, Brooklyn shopkeepers, with the stuffed “Teddy’s Bear.” They made it after a newspaper cartoon of the hunt.
In Germany, Richard Steiff designed a jointed plush bear at about the same time. We weigh both claims to the first teddy bear in a separate comparison.
Even Roosevelt’s approval of the name is hard to document. The presidential library says Michtom family tradition describes a request for permission, but no such letter has ever been found.
Roosevelt also did not think of the toy as a bear at all. In 1914, the library notes, he told Harriet Ford of Binghamton, New York, “I think the Teddy-bear is a kind of doll.”
Myth 2: Roosevelt Earned Money From the Toy
Roosevelt never earned money from the teddy bear. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library states this plainly in its list of teddy bear myths.
The profits went to the toy trade. Steiff’s company timeline records 973,999 teddy bears made in 1907 alone. Roosevelt had no share in that business or in any other maker’s sales.
Myth 3: Roosevelt Spared the Bear’s Life
The bear did not walk away. Roosevelt refused to shoot it and forbade others to shoot it, but he did not order it released.
He told the guides to put the animal “out of its misery,” according to the presidential library. John Parker, later governor of Louisiana, killed the bear with a knife.
That detail changes how the refusal reads. Roosevelt objected to an unsportsmanlike shot at a roped, injured animal, and that is the point Berryman’s cartoon made.
Myth 4: A Bear Lived in the Roosevelt White House
Roosevelt did own a bear. Whether it ever lived in the White House is much harder to prove than most pet lists suggest.
What Roosevelt wrote about Jonathan Edwards
The National Park Service lists a small bear named Jonathan Edwards among the Roosevelt children’s pets. Roosevelt described the animal himself in Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, first published in 1905.
“The bear added zest to life in more ways than one. When we took him to walk, it was always with a chain and club; and when at last he went to the Zoo, the entire household breathed a sigh of relief.”
Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter
In the same passage, Roosevelt explains the name. The children chose it partly for the bear’s “Calvinistic tendencies” and partly for their mother’s ancestor, the preacher Jonathan Edwards. Roosevelt adds that in one year he was given five bears, and most went to the zoo.
Why the White House part is shaky
Roosevelt’s own account never says where Jonathan Edwards lived. The presidential library’s pet page places him in the White House and says he came from Mississippi, without giving a date.
The zoo’s paper trail points earlier. The Wildlife Conservation Society’s archive holds a letter of January 2, 1901, in which Roosevelt offers the Bronx Zoo a black bear. He had left the New York governorship days before and became president that September.
That 1901 bear is not named in the zoo’s report, so it may not be Jonathan Edwards. Our reading is cautious: the Roosevelts owned a bear, but no primary source we found places it inside the White House.
Myth 5: Roosevelt Gave Up Bear Hunting
The refusal in 1902 was about fair play, not a change of heart about hunting. Roosevelt kept hunting bears while he was president.
In October 1907, he spent two weeks in the canebrakes of northern Louisiana. He wrote that he was “especially anxious to kill a bear” there. His own chapter on the trip describes the death of his bear.
Cartoonists enjoyed the contradiction. In Clifford Berryman’s 1907 cartoon “All Bears Look Alike To Him,” Roosevelt faces a grizzly. The teddy bear, meanwhile, reads a book called “Hunting the Grizzly.”
The President Behind the Name
The teddy bear was named for Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, who served from 1901 to 1909. It was not named for Franklin D. Roosevelt, his fifth cousin, who took office in 1933.
How the nickname became a common noun is a separate story. Our article on where the term teddy bear came from follows it from Berryman’s cartoon to the dictionary.
Presidential provenance raises prices, so it attracts weak claims. A bear sold as “from the Roosevelt White House” needs a dated document or a museum record behind it. The family’s own pet bear went to a zoo, by Roosevelt’s account.
The real Roosevelt connection is narrower than the myths and more interesting. A president refused one bad shot, kept hunting, and lent his name to a toy he called a doll.
Sources
- National Park Service, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, “The Story of the Teddy Bear,”, nps.gov.
- National Park Service, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, “The Roosevelt Pets,”, nps.gov.
- Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, “Top 10 Myths about Theodore Roosevelt and the Invention of the Teddy Bear,”, trlibrary.com.
- Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, “Did Roosevelt Like Being Called ‘Teddy’?”, trlibrary.com.
- Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, “White House Pets: The Roosevelt Menagerie,”, trlibrary.com.
- Wildlife Conservation Society Archives, “A Small Bear Named Jonathan Edwards,” 2015, wcsarchivesblog.org.
- Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, 1905, Project Gutenberg edition, gutenberg.org.
- Margarete Steiff GmbH, “From the past to the present,”, corporate.steiff.com.
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