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It
All Began with an Elephant
by
Bob Brooke
 When
someone mentions Steiff, the first thing that comes to mind are
teddybears. But actually Margarete Steiff first designed a small felt
elephant that she made both as a pin cushion and a child’s toy in 1883.
It wasn’t until 1903 that her company began producing the stuffed bears
for which it became famous.
Margarete Steiff faced a lot of challenges before coming a successful
businesswoman.
Even before she could walk, she lost the use of her legs from polio.
Confined to a wheelchair as she grew up, she became a skilled seamstress
and ran a successful dress making enterprise from her home in Germany.
She gave her little elephants to friends and neighbors.
 In
1880 she sold eight of the elephants, thus marking the beginning of the
Margarete Steiff Toy Company. Her brother Fritz thought her elephants
appealing and in 1883 he took some of the elephants to a market in
Heidenheim where he received a large number of orders. The company's
price list of that year described "felt toys for children – robust and
safe. Elephant with colored blanket." Steiff made her elephants in
several sizes and stuffed them with leftover pieces of felt. She added
metal wheels to some of them and left others without them. In building
up her initial success, she showed her elephants at an export showroom
in Stuttgart and soon began creating additional animals for her line.
 Business
continued to grow, and in 1889 the company moved into a building that
provided a corner shop with display windows. By 1893 the company had
four employees and ten home workers, with a traveling sales
representative added to the payroll the following year. Margarete's
brother Fritz was a major help in designing wood and metal frames for
the larger toys, and in obtaining equipment to allow increased
production. Margarete concentrated on creating felt toys, using the best
materials available, thus setting the benchmark for Steiff's reputation
for quality.
In 1895, Steiff sold its products outside Germany at Harrods in London,
England.
Margarete's nephew, Richard Steiff, joined the company in 1897, and gave
it an enormous boost by creating stuffed animals from drawings made at
the zoo. Richard attended the School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart and
studied in England. He designed the world's first plush bear with
movable arms and legs, known as "55 PB.”
 The
company used natural fibers such as mohair in their products. Steiff
workers meticulously tested and inspected the products. They required
them to be highly flame resistant, plus smaller pieces such as eyes had
to be able to resist considerable tension, wear and tear. Much of the
work had to be done by hand. It took 8 to 12 months of training for a
seamstress to develop the skills to make Steiff bears that met the
company's strict quality standards.
In 1903, a 3,000-piece order was placed by a buyer in America after the
"teddy bear" craze began due to a popular cartoon of President Theodore
"Teddy" Roosevelt and a young cub in The Washington Post in 1902.
 In
1897 Fritz' son Richard joined the firm. He created the first teddy bear
which became the chief product of the company. Two of Richard's
brothers, Paul and Franz, joined the firm in 1898.
Originally, to distinguish her work, Margarete filed patents and used a
trademark of an elephant printed on a paper label. Franz developed the
trademark "button-in-ear"
 concept
to keep counterfeits from being passed off as authentic Steiff toys. The
tag originally had the symbol of an elephant, and it was later replaced
by the name "Steiff." A fourth brother, Otto, joined the company in
1902, and brother Hugo followed in 1906.
 Eventually,
Steiff’s little felt elephant grew into an entire menagerie that
included a deer, several rabbits, a fox terrier, a polar bear, a frog, a
dachshund, and a big collection of monkeys that proved to be among the
most popular. The year 1913 saw the introduction of unique animals and
dolls, designed to sit on car radiator caps. Though these designs
included a variety of animals, one of the most popular was a chimpanzee
wearing a chauffeur's cap.
Before the outbreak of World War I, Steiffs collections of animals made
up the bulk of their production. Offered in many variations, the animals
came with or without wheels, voice boxes, and clock-work mechanisms.
Some special designs modeled after fairy, such as Puss 'n Boots from
Grimm's Fairy Tales and Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit.
 In
1898, Steiff offered ride-on animals with the help of the Marklin Toy
Company, which produced the metal bases and wheels. The year 1920 saw
the introduction of wooden wheels, but a return to a metal disc-type
wheel soon followed, as the wooden wheels were just too expensive to
produce.
With the beginning of the Depression came a strong anti-German
sentiment, which lasted through the 1930s. Steiff sales in the U.S.
market dropped dramatically. The death of Richard Steiff in 1939 and the
start of World War II ended much of Steiff's export sales, and toy
production stopped completely in 1943. The replication of old designs
and the creation of new ones helped the company rebuild much of its
business after the War.
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