- Richard Steiff
Richard Steiff (
February 7 1877 –March 30 1939 ) was a Germaninventor andentrepreneur . The nephew of the toymakerMargarete Steiff , he is credited with the designing the Steiff Company's first toy bear. [cite web |accessdate=2007-03-12|url=http://www.teddybearandfriends.com/archive/articles/history.html
title=The History of the Teddy Bear
author=Marianne Clay
year=2002]Steiff was born in
Giengen , and entered his aunt's toymaking enterprise in 1897. While attending the School of Arts and Crafts ("Kunstgewerbeschule") inStuttgart , he would regularly visit the nearby Nill'scherZoo (closed 1906 [cite web |accessdate=2007-03-11|url=http://www.zoo-ag.de/ZooAG-AufgeloesteZoos.htm|title=Aufgelöste Zoos in Deutschland|author=Zoo-AG Bielefeld - Arbeitsgruppe Zoobiologie|year=2007] ) and spend much of his time drawing the residents of thebear enclosure. His sketches of the bears were incorporated into theprototype of the toy bear he created in 1902 and codenamed "Steiff Bär55 PB " (where 55 = the bear's height incentimetre s; P = "Plüsch",plush ; and B = "beweglich", moveable [limbs] ).At its debut at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903, the bear initially attracted little attention, but its fortunes were saved when an American buyer snapped up the entire lot of 100 bears and ordered another 3,000 just before the exhibition finished. The heyday of the Steiff company thus began. At the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904, the Steiffs sold 12,000 bears and received the Gold Medal, which was the highest honor at the event. The kind of toy bear they pioneered acquired the appellation "teddy" from several legends about
Theodore Roosevelt . Steiff bears, with a small metal "Steiff" clip in the ear, can now be quite valuable.Richard Steiff also attained several other technological milestones. He developed the
Roloplan , a kind ofkite which could take aerial photographs of the Steifffactory and its surroundings in Giengen. The Imperial German Army expressed interest in the Roloplan for aerialreconnaissance purposes, but abandoned such plans when it proved to be unreliably slow.In 1903, Steiff also planned and erected in Giegen a factory building of
concrete andsteel called the "Jungfrauenaquarium" ("Virgins' Aquarium"), which allowed all the workers inside to enjoy ample natural light, a first for its time. He equipped the building with a ramp so that his aunt could reach the upper levels of the factory in herwheelchair .Steiff died at age 62 in
Jackson, Michigan ,United States .ee also
*
Stuffed animal Notes
References
*Pfeiffer, Günther. "125 Jahre Steiff Firmengeschichte - Die Margarethe Steiff GmbH". Königswinter: Heel Verlag GmbH, 2005. ISBN 3-89880-387-2.
*cite news|accessdate=2007-03-11|url=http://www.morgenpost.de/content/2002/11/09/ttt/561065.html |title=Namenspatron «Teddy» Roosevelt
work=Berliner Morgenpost
date=November 9 2002
language=GermanExternal links
*cite web|accessdate=2007-03-12|url=http://www.drachen.org/journals/a05/Steiff-Roloplan-Kite.pdf |format=PDF
title=The Power of Reverse Engineering — Building a 5-Foot Steiff Roloplan Kite
author=Scott Skinner
publisher=The Drachen Foundation
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