Gifting the Bear and a Nostalgic Desire for Childhood Innocence

Home , Aloysius (Waugh), Richard Steiff, Stuffed toy, Teddy bear

Gifting The Bear

Donna Varga Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada

Fig. 1 (Bumper Picture 1920, 3)

Abstract magine a child holding tightly onto This article examines twentieth and twenty- a teddy bear. The bear’s face wears a first century adult relational interactions with comforting smile; the child’s shows the teddy bear toy. It describes the association opennessI and peacefulness. This is an between the teddy’s mythological origins and iconic image that from the early twenti- its infusion with a commoditized sentimen- eth century has symbolized the toy’s as- tality that provides adults with a nostalgic sumed protective innocence shielding the return to an imagined personal and social otherwise vulnerable innocent from real time of childhood innocence. This analysis or feared harm. The line drawing shown further details how the ‘gifting’ of teddy bears here, from a 1920 children’s picture book, to adults and children in response to social or reflects this illusory simplicity. Produced personal crises denies possibilities for mean- by instilling emotional labor in adult ingful human interactions and social change. products (Hochschild 1983, 160), this commoditized compassion is constitutive of the adult teddy bear culture that by the 1920s, privileged the toy as a redeemer of Each and every human being at one time individual human frailty and of human or other has wanted a teddy bear to give social failings. Unlike children’s fantasy, them friendship and companionship the dominant beliefs and values of this (Andrews 2004, 1). adult culture are governed by an emotive sentimentality that depicts the teddy bear as possessing real feelings toward humans. Thus, as a result of the creation of the teddy bear as emotive subject, the ideology of teddy bear culture sees the

personal sacrifice of superfluous mate- ter about the way things are,” (Sturken rial goods as both all that is necessary 2007, 7) to quell the possibility for anger, and sufficient for the personal and social rebellion, aggression, or hate against per- restitution of humanity. sonal and social conditions. Coupling its This article provides a socio-cultural socio-cultural history to the analyses of history of that transfiguration and of its Sturken and Ehrenreich, I argue that the relationship to the activity of teddy bear gifting of teddy bears, a commercialized gifting: the provision of teddy bears as a relational artifact, is a practice that inher- means for alleviating the alienated emo- ently replaces real social and political tional self. Adult teddy bear culture is engagements with a dehumanizing rela- identified as an outcome of the late nine- tionship to things. teenth-century symbiosis of child-animal nature in popular and scientific culture. The Birth of an Icon Over the first half of the twentieth cen- Happy birthday, teddy bear tury, the ideologies of the child as young It’s been 100 years. animal and animals as sentient beings be- Happy birthday, teddy bear came embodied in the teddy bear, which, We’re glad that you are here in turn, became representative of white (Pell 2002). childhood innocence. From the second half of that century and continuing into the twenty-first, the toy was further im- The origin of the teddy bear toy and its bued with social, emotional, and mate- value as ambassador of love is situated rial capacities of transformative love. within a mythological outcome of a No- vember 14, 1902 hunt, when President Examining the mythology of the ted- Theodore Roosevelt is deemed to have dy bear’s origins and the infusion of the freed a bear that had been roped for him item with a commoditized sentimentali- to kill. In different tellings, the captured ty reveals how it has become possible for bear is variously described as “old”, the teddy to be reified as therapeutic arti- “young”, “sick”, or, according to a 1926 fact, and for its gifting to become an act of magazine article, as “only eighteen inch- social justice seen as equivalent to dona- es tall” (Crenshaw 1926, 62). The nar- tions of food, clothing, and financial aid. It rative also places the event as being on can be tempting to dismiss or mock adult the last day of a failed hunting venture reverence for the teddy as nothing more during a break in border negotiations be- than kitsch, but Ehrenreich (Ehrenreich tween Mississippi and Louisiana. Some 2001, 43-53) has warned of the ways that accounts characterize Roosevelt as being the all-encompassing nature of kitsch in an unenthusiastic participant in the hunt the lives of women suffering from breast who takes the captured bear as a White cancer is built upon a social alienation House pet; at other times, the President that celebrates passive social interaction is said to have taken the bear to a zoo or in place of real social change. Similarly, taken the bear’s pelt to the Smithsonian Sturken’s Tourists of History, explains that for preservation. the teddy bear’s cultural promise is to, by its presence alone, “make us feel bet-

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The year 2002 was celebrated in North Murphy’s text and illustrations accentu- America, Europe, and Asia as the 100th ate the fear and suffering of a captured birthday of the origin of the teddy bear. cub, roped by the neck with two dogs at In Mississippi, this anniversary was even bay. Roosevelt, though toughened by life marked with a resolution designating the in the outdoors, displays a benevolence teddy bear, or teddy, as the official state that belies the hunting discourse of his toy with the legislature stating that “the time: stuffed bear toy, appropriately named the Some of the men in the president’s group ‘Teddy Bear,’ evolved and continues to be cornered a young bear. Barking dogs sur- a universal symbol of love, comfort and rounded the frightened bear, as the men joy for children of all ages”(Mississippi roped and tied it to a tree…The fright- Legislature 2002). In the resolution’s ened bear clawed at the rope, trying to wording, President Theodore “Teddy” free itself. The bear whipped his head back and forth. Its back feet kicked up Roosevelt is reconstituted as bear sym- clouds of dust and dirt. Teddy looked pathizer, a soft-cloth child’s toy becomes down at his rifle and then..laid it on the a humanitarian ambassador, and Missis- ground. He shouted out to his men, “Stop sippi, a state with a long history of vio- badgering that bear! It is helpless. Let it lence, is constructed as the source of this go!” (no page) empathetic creature. The key points of this and similar Frank Murphy’s children’s book, The stories for both children and adults are: Legend of the Teddy Bear further buttresses hunters other than Roosevelt capture the legitimacy of this narrative by ex- the bear; Roosevelt, disgusted by the act, plaining that while, “many legends are orders its release; the bear escapes un- based on fiction…the story of Theodore harmed. The variations on this myth are Roosevelt refusing to shoot that bear…is globally disseminated through the Smith- based on fact” (Murphy 2000, no page). sonian, popular publications and web- Murphy blends hagiography with pa- sites for adults, children’s picture books, triotism by claiming that Mississippi and scholarly histories of Theodore and Louisiana, “wanted this great and Roosevelt. These have been successful in fair man to settle an argument about a displacing real knowledge of Roosevelt’s boundary line” (Ibid). He propagates the hunting behaviors with fictitious remi- President’s folkloric status by denoting niscences of him as a selfless animal pro- him as akin to the common man, while tector. This substitution has been a neces- at the same time being “adored” by “the sary component of teddy bear culture; it people of America” (Ibid). In reality, provides the model for love to be trans- Roosevelt was of Fifth Avenue old New ferred from human to bear, which is then York stock who had not yet established imagined as being reciprocated by the a Presidential reputation, given that he bear, through its lifeless representative in had only succeeded to the office in Sep- the form of the teddy bear, to humans. tember 1901 upon the shooting death of The actual events of the hunt need re- President McKinley, and towards whom peating here not only to counter the pro- there were wide-spread feelings of dis- liferation of inaccurate accounts, but also gruntlement (Dalton 2002; Watts 2003). because the facts provide context for an-

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alyzing gifting behavior. On November because his political enemies would have 14, 1902 Roosevelt was engaged in the used his shooting of an unconscious bear first day of a bear hunt in the canebrakes against him. A fellow hunter attempted of the Mississippi Delta. It had been to kill the bear by knife, but his lack of planned weeks in advance by Roosevelt skill only caused the animal further tor- as a holiday to recuperate from the tax- ment; so Collier finished the task by stab- ing endeavors of resolving the anthracite bing the bear through the heart (Buch- coal strike that had paralyzed the East- anan 2002, 171-2). The carcass was taken ern seaboard (President’s Trip 1902, 9). back to camp where it was deemed to According to Holt Collier, the esteemed have been an adult weighing 250 pounds African American hunter who was the and the body was consumed over the party’s guide, Roosevelt insisted on be- next couple of meals, with a paw roast ing the first to kill a bear (Buchanan 2002, for Sunday’s dinner (Quiet Day in Camp 167). This could not be guaranteed if 1902, 1). the hunters were to follow the dogs, as The day after the story about the hunt the Delta terrain made it impossible to was published, the Washington Post ran, herd the bear toward a specific hunter. on its front page, the cartoonist Clifford Roosevelt was, therefore, positioned in Berryman’s depiction of the President re- a blind, stationed in an open area where fusing to kill the bear (Berryman 1902a, Collier assumed a bear could be driven 1). In it the animal’s captor, shown as a out (Ibid). white rustic in place of Collier, struggles Select journalists who had been al- to keep his grip on a rope wrapped tightly lowed to the hunt site, and who pub- around the bear’s neck. The bear, instead lished identical stories in the Washington of being unconscious, pulls strongly back Post and the New York Times provided with eyes suggesting fear. Roosevelt car- an account of the events. It was report- ries a Winchester and has a full cartridge ed that Roosevelt returned to the camp belt around his waist. The hunt knife that when it appeared that the bear would was tucked into his belt was not primar- not be flushed until late in the day, but, in ily for skinning or self-defense, but for Roosevelt’s absence, the bear emerged at killing animals by hand, the preferred the spot where he had been placed (One technique of the socially elite hunters of Bear Bagged 1902, 1; One Bear Falls Prey the period. 1902, 1). The bear, having been chased Post readers would have been aware into a water hole, attacked and killed one of the details of the bear’s death from the of the hunting dogs. Collier, who later previous day’s article. Roosevelt’s predi- expressed exasperation with Roosevelt’s lection for killing wild animals was also desertion of his assigned post and thus well known. For these reasons as well failure to prevent the ensuing mayhem, as the softly ironic style of Clifford Ber- acted to save his remaining dogs by club- ryman, the Post’s star political cartoon- bing the bear with his rifle. He then teth- ist, the public would have been able to ered the comatose animal to a tree so that understand the cartoon and its “Draw- Roosevelt could have his kill (Buchanan ing the Line in Mississippi” caption as a 2002, 170). Roosevelt declined, probably derisory commentary on the President’s

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accusations of extravagant hunting prac- worth that could be shared with humans tices by others, while himself engaging rather than exploited for economic gain in excessive animal slaughter.1 (Lutts 1990, 30; Nash 1982, 147-148). What happens at this point in teddy It is most likely that the earliest stuffed bear history is as wrapped in confusion toy bear to arrive on the American mar- and mythology as the tale of the 1902 ket was created by Steiff, the German hunt. According to teddy bear lore, the felt manufacturing company.2 In early cartoon stimulated Rose Michtom, co- 1903 it presented such an item at toy proprietor of a New York novelty store, fairs in New York and Leipzig. It was a to create and sell a home-stitched, stuffed rod-jointed toy, the appearance of which toy bear modeled on Berryman’s car- was based on the European brown bear toon. It was, supposedly, a quick seller, (Maniera 2001, 25-6). Rather than being prompting her to make more which also a replication of Berryman’s image, this speedily sold. Rose and her husband bear was an extension of the company’s then reportedly exchanged letters with line of soft-cloth wild animal toys that President Roosevelt requesting, and was developing from, and encouraging, getting permission, to name the toy the a growing public market for this type of “Teddy bear”. Its subsequent popularity children’s plaything. resulted in the formation of the Ideal Toy Regardless of who sewed the first Company and the mass production of teddy-like bear, its idealization as hu- teddies. While this tale acts to perpetual- man-animal child was manifested in the ly heighten the homespun and entrepre- period’s adult popular culture, including neurial Americana version of the origins Seton’s story about Johnny Bear. of the teddy bear’s manufacture, most of it is probably false. From Wild Bear to Innocent Teddy Another possibility, that is probably clos- After Berryman’s publication of “Draw- er to the truth, although it remains marginal ing the Line” he included an insouciant to teddy bear culture, is that the toy is based bear in his next cartoon about Roosevelt’s on Johnny Bear, the title character of nature same hunt. In this one, a bear sitting atop writer Ernest Thomson Seton’s 1900 story of a hill observes the hunting party leaving that name (Seton 1900). Seton was one of the the area carrying exhausted and dead most admired of the new-style nature writers dogs; one hunter drags behind him a live of the late nineteenth and early twentieth bear around the neck of which is a tag centuries. His stories, written for adults that reads, “Back to the Zoo”; the bear but also shared with children, were the on the hill holds a newspaper with the first in English non-fiction to present taunting headline, “HOW CAN YOU the perspective of wild animals as hav- BEAR TO LEAVE ME!” (Berryman 1902b, ing moral, psychological, and emotional 1). Berryman continued to regularly use lives that are as meaningful as those of the bear imagery (which he referred to humans. He and like-minded writers as Bruin) in his political cartoons, often were powerful influences on the growing shown in tandem with Roosevelt and penchant to understand the wilderness for a number of years as a critical com- and its inhabitants as having an inherent ment on Roosevelt’s hunting practices.

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However, the antics of Bruin are more Post cartoon (and a regeneration of the clearly aligned with the taunting bear, as real, killed bear), and replaces Berryman’s opposed to one being helplessly dragged original challenge to Roosevelt’s hunting away. 3 practices with reverence. This historical Adult readers of the Washington Post amnesia in relation to the cartoons is a were so enthralled with Bruin that its purposeful deceit, given that the correct appearance made Berryman a celebrity. dating is provided in many popular writ- The National Press Club subsequently ings about the teddy bear, but then im- requested the November 16 cartoon for mediately ignored. Those who engage in display and archival purposes. Berryman this reconstruction of historical memory could not locate it, (it had likely been appear to be fulfilling a public’s nostal- discarded), so he drew it anew (Mullins gic desire for a personal and social time 2002, 43). The actual date of the new ver- of innocence, and perhaps to liken one’s sion remains obscure, but it likely took self – through teddy bear gifting – to the place between 1903 and 1906. The differ- fabled Roosevelt. ences between the first and the second In 1906 the bear toy really was refash- images are notable. In the new version ioned by the Michtom enterprise with its the bear hardly resembles the real thing; production of a cuddlier and more infan- it is small, wide-eyed, and vulnerable. tile version. Rods were not inserted into Its size makes it of no use as meat and of the body and its appearance was baby- no danger to humans. Roosevelt is less a ish – with chubby limbs, largish head, svelte example of the strenuous life and low-set wide-spaced eyes, round torso, more a portly sport hunter of his social soft coat, and small hump (Maniera 2001, class sans hunting knife. In this drawing 25-26). This restyled bear incorporated Berryman reproduced what had become the latter nineteenth-century conceptu- a favored re-imagining of the outcome of alization of an animal-child symbiosis the November 14 hunt, with Roosevelt that arose out of the new nature writer as the bear’s savior, and the animal as a literature and child development theory young, quivering creature. (Varga 2009a). In teddy bear culture the second ver- By the second half of the nineteenth sion of “Drawing the Line in Mississip- century, white childhood was being pi” is invariably cited, including by the popularly defined by Jean-Jacques Rous- Smithsonian, as the original, with the seau’s seventeenth-century argument reimagined captive bear’s appearance as a period of moral innocence, an idea proof that it stimulated the creation of amplified by theological assertions that the Michtom’s teddy toy, and with its white children were “angels incarnate” title demonstrating Roosevelt’s demand who had “entered this world with the for the animal’s release. Such has helped innocence and sanctity of heaven still sustain the mythological relationship be- clinging to them” (Calvert 1992, 104- tween Roosevelt and the bears – the real 105). In the realm of visual culture, the one and the toy. It preserves the belief of eighteenth-century painterly equation of a spontaneous generation of the teddy “childhood with innocence and with na- bear from the original 1902 Washington ture” was, in the nineteenth century, pop-

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ularized by the production of prints of While the early twentieth century’s idealized child portraits (Higgonet 1998, cult of innocent childhood expanded 49, 51). The belief in white childhood in- the range of soft-cloth children’s toys to nocence was given scientific credence in other animal characters (Varga 2009a), the late nineteenth century by the child the teddy bear was imbued with an ex- study authority, G. Stanley Hall (Ross ceptional status. It was not just an item 1972 309-340) through the application of of childhood pleasure, but, early on, was recapitulation theory to human develop- thought capable of safeguarding children ment. The theory posits that individual against adult vagary. As such, the teddy development is a successive passage is singular in its function of maintaining through the evolutionary phases of one’s the innocence of children and of child- race, with infants and young children be- hood. In addition, it provided early nine- ing at a stage of unenlightened morality teenth century parents and other adults analogous to animals (Gould 1967). The with an object they could give to children uniting of the sublime wild and innocent as a means of vicariously satisfying their childhood discourses created, by the final own emotional needs to experience the years of the nineteenth century, a belief in world as new and joyful as if through the a natural kinship between animals (espe- eyes of the wondrously innocent child cially young animals) and children that (Cross 2004). gave to both a consciousness that was The teddy’s role as protective agent of superior to that of adult humans (Varga childhood innocence is a central element 2009b). The outcome was an archetype of of children’s stories from 1907. In that a white childhood naturally innocent of year the widely popular Ladies’ Home impiety in thought and action and physi- Journal provided a fictional story about ologically marked by chubby limbs and an ill mother who buys her young son a wide-open eyes. soft-cloth bear (Taylor 1907, 11, 76). The Commodification, mass production, boy’s father mocks his son’s interest in advertisements, and children’s literature the toy as effeminate, resulting in their quickly established the Michtom model estrangement. When the mother dies the of the teddy bear as a nursery toy, and its child is bereft of companionship, and he child-like form was ensconced in mate- seeks out the bear for comfort. The boy’s rial and social culture. This included its need overcomes his father’s derision, 1907 inscription on infant spoons (Teddy and they are reunited in a melodrama of Bear Baby Spoon 1907, 27), and inclusion sorrow and love: “Father’s arms swept in an advertisement for children’s break- around them and gathered them into his fast cereal (Toasted Corn Flakes 1907, queer lap….‘Poor old man!’ he was whis- 48). Its imagery was replicated by other pering over and over. ‘I’ll try hard, Boy. producers of toy bears and in most chil- Oh, my God, but try hard, little chap!’” dren’s stories with a bear character. Its (Taylor 1907, 76). The bear looks on, wink- idealization of innocence was featured ing in triumph. The story’s publication in as the piano music for Teddy Bear’s Two- a popular adult magazine suggests that Step (Bratton 1907) renamed with lyrics the teddy was accepted by middle class added in 1932 as Teddy Bears’ Picnic (Ken- adults as a guardian of childhood – at nedy 1932). least in a fictionalized world – and as a

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therapeutic agent of emerging twentieth- ugly and miserable, I could come century consumer capitalism” (Lears back and dig it up and remember. 1994, 250).4 (Waugh 1945, 24) Another of the earliest teddy gifting The cultural importance of the teddy stories was a 1911 tale about a well-to- was dramatically transformed as of the do child who gives her small bear toy mid-twentieth century, to being an item to a destitute girl who had expressed a of adult idolatry. This was stimulated by desire for one just like it (Oldmeadow the rising popularity of psychoanalysis 1911, 78-79). An unknown man who had with its notable reference to the teddy witnessed her generosity rewards self- bear as a commonplace transitional ob- lessness by in turn giving her a teddy for ject that because of its unchanging and Christmas, with this one being “almost passive form was used as a tool of com- as big as herself” (Oldmeadow 1911, 78). fort and security for children as they Extending the toy’s protective status be- learned to understand themselves as yond its original owner and the bour- separate from their mothers (Winnicott geoisie provided a moral lesson to chil- 1953, 89, 91). In the face of psychosocial dren of that social class: giving a teddy to alienation within capitalism, the teddy, poor children would bring happiness to as a mother-substitute, became an adult the destitute, and result in an exponen- fetish. Retreating inward to find solace, tial material return. the toy could be spoken of as having a The teddy as a cultural signifier of the therapeutic value for adults, of being symbolic comforts of childhood, home, considered, “a leavening influence amid and family was further commercialized the trials and tribulations of life” (Hen- during various social crises of the early derson 1962 as quoted in Maniera 2001, twentieth century. After the 1912 Titanic 144). sinking, Steiff produced black mourn- The post-1950s expansion of com- ing bears; these were part of a window mercial nostalgic production enhanced display at Harrods and for sale (Cockrill adult interest in teddies (Moran 2002). 2001). During World War I, pocket-size An increased availability of entertain- teddy bears were produced for sale as ment products and discretionary income charms to be given as gifts to soldiers heightened the anxiety of an adult con- being deployed (Maniera 2001). Still, for sumer culture “fearful of the future and most of the first half of that century, the alienated from the past” from which “they teddy was primarily considered a child’s found refuge in the mystique of child- plaything and a storybook character hood…defined and experienced through whose status of childhood innocent did consumer culture” (Cross 2004, 27, 15). not generally encompass adults.5 This Teddy bears produced for, and marketed would change in the 1950s. specifically toward, adults were stylized after those from the earlier decades of the twentieth century (Cockrill 2001). These Nostalgic Innocence bears were neither toys for adults, nor I should like to bury something pre- simply a reminder of times past. Instead, cious in every place where I’ve been the teddy was intended to provide a real happy and then, when I was old and

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transcendence of time and space, a ma- bears; artist bears are handmade limited terial means for bringing back as lived edition teddies; bearapy is teddy bear-fa- adult reality the supposed simple and cilitated mental health intervention. innocent times of an undefined era of a By the last years of the twentieth cen- bygone childhood. tury its most adherent adult fans consid- In the early 1980s the teddy as a so- ered the teddy a sentient being indistin- lution to the nostalgic desire for child- guishable from human childhood and hood innocence was given substantive this idea has been reproduced within impetus by the American and British children’s culture. The 1994 children’s television broadcast of Evelyn Waugh’s book, When the Teddy Bears Came (Waddell book, Brideshead Revisited , from which 1994/1998) provides further evidence of the opening quote to this section has the adult view of teddy bears as, at the been taken (Waugh 1945, 45). The pro- very least, no different from that of chil- gram made a celebrity of Aloysius, the dren, and, perhaps, of even greater senti- teddy bear companion of the adult, Lord mental value. In the story, a newborn hu- Sebastian Flyte. In addition, Flyte’s im- man baby, who remains genderless and plicit homosexuality, unacknowledged nameless, is gifted with one teddy after in mainstream teddy bear culture, made another. In contrast to the baby’s status, the artifact an icon of the gay community. each teddy is gendered and named. Alice In the 1980s, giving teddy bears to AIDS Bear, Ozzie Bear, Sam Bear, Huggy, Rock- sufferers was a means for extending con- well Bear, Dudley Bear, and Bodger Bear tact in an indirect way to the forbidden are wide-eyed furry infants with whom bodies of the ill and the dying. Original- Tom (the baby’s brother) has to compete ly these were personal giftings, but, by for family space on the sofa. In the final the end of the decade, they had become pages, the teddy bears’ and human in- an essential part of the growth of AIDS fant’s needs are deemed equally worthy activism (Harris 1994, 55-6). The com- of struggle for space and attention: “And modification of AIDS teddies was also a that’s what they did. When the new baby means for challenging straights to see the came to Tom’s house they all took turns disease as a killer of innocents.6 taking care of the bears…and together The collectors’ and popular maga- they all looked after the baby” (Waddell zine, Teddy Bear and Friends, has been one 1994/1998). of the initial and foremost solidifiers of The expansion to adult popular cul- teddy bear culture. Established in 1983, ture of the desire for the teddy to be a the magazine and its followers have been child is illustrated by a 2010 television supportive of a lifestyle normalizing the commercial for Snuggle Dryer Softener adult adoption of fantasized childhood Sheets. A teddy bear has been the prod- hegemony. This includes the creation of uct’s ‘spokes-bear’ since at least 1984, terminology that defines its beliefs, the denoting familial comfort by its expres- meaning of which is obscure to those sion of both the “wondrously innocent” unfamiliar with the culture- for exam- and “cute” of post-industrial consumer ple: arctophiles are lovers, that is, fans, of society (Cross 2004). The 2010 advertise- teddy bars; a hug is a collection of teddy ment shows a young white woman who

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has just taken laundry out of her drier, to children who have experienced a mass kneeling down with hands stretched out disaster or a personal tragedy. Innumera- toward a digitalized Snuggle teddy. The ble human illnesses and conditions have bear toddles toward her, arms stretched a teddy bear mascot, often adorned with forward, eyes wide and bright in antici- an emblematic colored ribbon. Emergen- pation of her comforting hug. cy personnel carry teddies about to give While advanced capitalism has height- to children and adults who have experi- 7 ened individual expectations for person- enced trauma. Such activities of teddy al fulfillment, the failure of those needs bear gifting are based on a belief in the to be met through material consumption toy’s capacity for transcendent love that and the “split in society between per- creates for recipients a fanciful pleasure- sonal relations and anonymous social filled childhood. The internet site, Teddy relations” (Zaretsky 1976, 10) has left Bears for Hope, explains this in rhetoric people devoid of a satisfying inner emo- comparable to spiritual belief as being an tional life. The ownership and exchange inexplicable phenomenon: “There’s just of teddy bears is an act intended to medi- something about a Teddy Bear that’s im- ate between feelings of being alone and possible to explain. When you hold one unloved, and the desire to receive and in your arms, you get a feeling of love, give love. Its extension through teddy comfort and security. It’s almost super- bear gifting is an individual and collec- natural” (Teddy Bears For Hope). tive attempt to integrate a personal life Website solicitations by teddy bear or- with effective communal relations. How- ganizations are also often patterned after ever, the basis of teddy gifting culture in televangelist ministries, for example: the commercialization of emotions, with Every donation to Teddy Bears for its emphasis on the individual’s personal Hope will help send brand new teddy feelings and inner needs, causes it to re- bears to children around the world place political action and reinforce the who will benefit from their love and very conditions of subjective and social comfort. Donations of all amounts are alienation. accepted and appreciated in order to provide hope to as many children as possible. Gifting as Therapeutic Innocence (Teddy Bears for Hope “Do- Gary Cross has persuasively argued nate”, bold in original). that the cultural construction of a wondrously innocent child has provided Pictures of forlorn children who are with- adults with assurance that by their par- out teddies and smiling children with ticipation in children’s culture they too teddies, along with stories of happiness can be sheltered from life’s difficulties returned, support a belief in the object’s and made emotionally whole. Within transformational possibilities. this context resides the expectation that Gifting was initially manifested as a the teddy bear is capable of transform- spontaneous and sporadic placement of ing human lives. Hundreds of organiza- teddies on coffins of young children or tions exist for the purpose of collecting at sites of the deaths of young people donated teddy bears and providing them (Grider 2006, 256-257). The 1995 bombing

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of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building Two years after Oklahoma, the car in Oklahoma City brought about a mass crash death of the United Kingdom’s expression of memorializing in protest Princess Diana resulted in a manic out- against the attack and as a means of con- pouring of grief about her demise, and veying emotional kinship with victims anger at the British Royal family for what and their families. A variety of material was perceived as its poor treatment of her. goods were brought to the scene, each in Mounds of teddies were placed outside some way a personal expression of hu- her one-time London home, Kensington man intimacy. These things, which in- Palace, with personal notes attached, and cluded teddy bears, were favored televi- were tossed along with flowers onto her sion images and were repeatedly shown passing funeral motorcade. The Oklaho- along with melodramatic music, footage ma and Princess Diana episodes foretold of the bombing’s aftermath, and a pho- the monstrous dimension teddy gifting tograph of the attempted rescue of the was to take. In 2001 hundreds of thou- infant, Baylee Almon. sands were sent to New York City, Wash- The spectacle encouraged such an on- ington, and Pennsylvania after the Sep- slaught of teddies that despairing city tember 11 terrorist attacks. That of these, officials pleaded with the public that, 100,000 were provided by the Oklahoma “no more cuddly stuffed teddy bears City Memorial archive (Strauss 2001) re- be sent”; that, “they are beyond teddy veals that the burden such questionable bears” (Knapp 1995, 5).Their appeal went donations place on aid workers had been unheeded. Items of various kinds kept substituted, in public service memory, arriving and were finally incorporated with a desire to believe in the toy’s ca- into the city’s memorial project (Sturken pabilities of magically reversing time. By 2007, 117-118); by 2009 there were 60,000 October 2001 there was a concern that a items (Oklahoma City National Memo- shortage of teddy bears would further rial & Museum). That the teddy is the traumatize children. One of the found- official representative of all, having been ers of Operation Teddy Care reported named in 1995 as the National Memo- that, what with the needs of Oklahoma rial’s “symbol of comfort,” bespeaks of City, Kobe, postal workers (because of the desire for an object to fulfill a desire anthrax), hazardous material workers, for love to conquer despair. It is the lone police and rescue workers – all of whom “being” gracing the Memorial Holiday “need the comfort of a teddy bear” – “tra- Ornament – a Christmas tree decoration ditional sources of large donations of the showing a teddy bear seated on a Me- toys are ‘maxing out’” (Workman 2001). morial chair, and similar looking teddies After 9/11, as in Waddell’s story dis- are sold at the Memorial store (Ibid). It cussed earlier, the bears kept arriving. In has been named Hope Bear, and schools 2004 planeloads were sent to East Asia borrowing the Memorial’s peace educa- after the December Tsunami. In 2005 tion Hope Trunk receive a certificate, they arrived in New Orleans on the tail “proclaiming your school a Hope Bear of Hurricane Katrina. In 2010 they were school,” and get to keep the toy (Oklaho- travelling to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. ma City National Memorial & Museum Name a social, health or environmen- 2008, 2).

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tal disaster and the teddy follows, in- als on the HolyBears website that pro- cluding to Africa for children born with claim the profitability of the products for AIDS. Christs [sic] Light began sending retailers and fundraisers exemplify the the toy in 1983 to such afflicted infants limitations of buying and gifting a mate- after a request by aid workers for, “the rial commodity to satisfy real emotional comfort of the human touch and a teddy needs while at the same time attempt- bear, so the dying AIDS orphaned babies ing to make a financial profit or rectify a would have the company of a toy as they gap in social services. (Deerlake Design wait for death, all alone by themselves, “Cooking HolyBear™”; “Sweet 16 9 Inch in white metal cages [cribs]” (An AIDS HolyBear™”) Orphan Solution). The quotation is pre- The supposed redeeming effect of the sented on the website without any sense teddy bear to return one to childhood of irony about the attempt to replace the and spiritual innocence has also been dearth of social contact with a material formally incorporated into therapeutic object. programs. An example is Adult Children Faith in the teddy bear’s presence to Anonymous, a self-help group for adult make everything better, and at the same children of alcoholic and dysfunctional time provide donors with the personal families. It uses the teddy bear as mascot, satisfaction of having effected change is with a call to empowerment voiced by expressed in the following response to its TeddysRule logo (TeddysRule). The September 11: teddy bear image is found on all its web My children are too young to donate pages; teddy bear nights are celebrations blood and we could send money; but of a member’s one-year anniversary in we wanted our children to have some- the program and members can receive thing tangible to do, so we thought if we various certificates that include the toy’s could send a teddy bear, a child could image. The explanation by the organiza- hold on to that in their time of grief and tion for its use of the teddy bear is that healing and maybe find some comfort. it represents an, “acceptance of the fact (as quoted in White and Cowan 2001) that some of our less functional behaviors can be traced back to the parts of us For those wishing for a more confident that didn’t quite grow up and the role we assurance of redemption from alienation, begin to play in reparenting ourselves, HolyBears™ are available for purchase at meeting needs that weren’t met ear- www.holybears.com. The extensive line lier and developing new and better life includes the pink and hopeful, “How skills” (Ibid). It is a poignant attempt to can a young person stay pure?” Sweet meet the desire to recapture a lost child- 16 HolyBear. Each HolyBear comes with hood, or to create one that never existed. a bible-shaped tag on which is written a gospel verse pertaining to the item’s One of the most commercially success- focus. The one for Cooking HolyBear is ful items of the nostalgic teddy bear in- John 6:35: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the dustry is Spinoza© the Bear Who Speaks bread of life. He who comes to me will from the Heart,™ as a companion to in- never go hungry, and he who believes stitutionalized, vulnerable populations. in me will never be thirsty.’” Testimoni- This teddy comes embedded with a tape

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cassette or CD player for listening to Spi- ing? [. . .] These questions ask what we noza’s songs for developing self-esteem will be like, what kind of people are we and self-love. Spinoza’s retailers argue becoming, as we develop increasingly that his “gift” is in providing comfort, intimate relationships with machines (Turkle 2006, 3, emphasis in original). companionship and love in lieu of family or paid caregivers (Ibid). Spinoza comes with a full line of audio, visual and mate- The Limits of Symbolic Love rial products and instructional books for If teddy bears ruled the world, their use with all ages and varieties of de- Oh my, what a wonderful place. pendencies. “His” audio recording, Good Everyone would be happy. Friends, has been lauded as providing a There would be a smile on every face. person with Alzheimer’s confidence in (Miner 1997) one’s self through its message of being, “accepted just the way he/she is” (Spi- The teddy bear brings melodramatic noza Bear). Facility staff have reported pleasure to adults because it exists for the that residents, “will tell the stuffed ani- purpose of returning the supposed gift of mal their thoughts and feelings because human love received from Roosevelt on there just isn’t anyone else they feel they that terrifying day in the 1902 swampy can talk to” (Cutler 2004, 10-11). Not- canebrake of the Mississippi Delta. In its withstanding the comfort that Spinoza role as redeemer, the teddy retains the brings, it subsequently infantilizes its paternalistic function of its presidential adult recipients and promotes acquies- namesake. This questionable message is cence by them of their condition, and of assumed by adults to be an acceptable re- its gifters toward the shortage of alterna- sponse to social injustice. One example, of tive, stimulating human interactions. many, of its transmission to children and Despite Spinoza’s lack of interactive thereby its cultural acceptance and re- responsiveness, its promotion as mean- production, is found in the 2002 illustrat- ingful support personnel raises moral ed book, The Teddy Bear (McPhail 2002). and ethical issues. Sherry Turkle poses This story tells of a young boy whose important questions about the use of in- teddy, when it is left behind at a restau- teractive robots for supportive compan- rant, is thrown into the trash. A homeless ionship and assisted living in relation to –nameless – man finds the teddy. During resolving emotional alienation She asks: the night he sleeps with it in dumpsters, Do plans to provide relational robots and during the day cradles it in his arms to children and the elderly make us on a park bench. One day the man leaves less likely to look for other solutions the teddy on a bench, “while he looked for their care? If our experience with relational artifacts is based on a fun- for something,” Ibid) and the little boy damentally deceitful interchange (arti- finds it. Joyously, he and his family re- facts’ ability to persuade us that they trieve the bear. When they see the home- know and care about our existence) less man approaching they quickly move can it be good for us? Or might it be away; but when they hear his child-like good for us in the “feel good” sense, “wailing” (Ibid) for the bear, the boy runs but bad for us in our lives as moral be- back and gives him the teddy. The man

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is comforted, as an infant would be, tak- of an alienated life. In wrestling with the ing up the toy with a smile and hugging problem posed by a teddy bear culture it. The final illustration shows, without that confuses thingness with humanity, intended irony, the man stopped along we need to answer the question, “If ted- the park path with the teddy bear in one dy isn’t there, does anyone care?” with arm, and bag of belongings in the other, Turkle’s admonishment that, “simulated evaluating the worth of items in a gar- feeling is never feeling. Simulated love bage can. The not-so-implicit message, is never love” (Turkle 2006, 2). Notwith- given that the adults have avoided con- standing the importance this soft-cloth tact with the homeless man, is that he, toy has for many persons’ emotional and and others of his ilk, can be emotionally personal lives, teddy bear culture denies content with a teddy bear in place of real the very essence of human relationships human contact. desired by its members. The emotional bond of enthusiasts to the artifact’s function as an emissary of hope is considered by them as neither Notes a personal preference nor a culturally- 1. While there have been arguments that the produced phenomenon, but as inherent caption and drawing refer to Roosevelt’s in the object. Its devotees regard the ted- stance against lynching, with the neck-roped dy as being, “a truly international figure bear representing African Americans. How- that is non-religious and yet is univer- ever, there is more evidence against than for sally recognized as a symbol of love and this argument; in fact, Roosevelt maintained affection” (as quoted in Maniera 2001, that African American males were prone to 144). Thus, adults project meanings onto engage in rape, that lynching was a suitable the teddy as having real affective possi- punishment, and that taking a leadership role against it would only destroy his politi- bilities, for instance by, “providing hope cal career (Sinkler 1972, 420; 430-34). In addi- for children worldwide…one teddy bear tion, Berryman’s cartoon oeuvre caricatured at a time” (Teddy Bears for Hope). The out- African Americans. come for individuals is an alienation of 2. Steiff began producing stuffed wild animal the emotional self as well as a disunity toys from 1880. However, at the time it pro- at the level of social interactions (Seeman duced the first stuffed toy bear its primary 1959). manufacturing product was still felt (Pfeiffer Through magical thinking the teddy 2005; Varga 2009a). bear has become a proto-human infant 3. Berryman’s “Bruin” has not yet been prop- the presence of which alleviates suffer- erly historicized. Its popularity as a political ing. Teddy bear gifting provides a sense and social interpreter indicate that it was of personal benevolence and bestows more than a likeable comic character, but was upon its adherents a state of mystical in- afforded significance as a cultural authority nocence. This inducement of self-repre- along the lines of what Lears’ has identified sentation through the commercialization as the late nineteenth- and early twentieth- of emotions (Longman 1992, 112) results centuries’ elevation of “simple and childlike rusticity” (Lears 1994, 57) to a therapeutic in a metaphysical transcendence of, rath- lifestyle. Lears’ analysis provides key in- er than confrontation with, the realities sights for understanding how Berryman

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could determine the viability of transforming by “non-believers” does not eliminate the ex- Bruin, within two months, of its origin, from istence of a teddy bear culture as discussed in being a wild adult bear, to a human-like cub this paper. The distribution of the toy regard- without its losing, and perhaps its even gain- less of its propriety demonstrates the extent ing, such authority, especially through its to which teddy bear culture has become a relationship to Roosevelt. The link between normative and bureaucratic practice by some Lears’ denoting of American therapeutic cul- emergency personnel and agencies. ture of that early period, and the therapeutic culture discussed in this paper has still to be worked out. Works Cited 4. This teddy bear story is also interesting An AIDS Orphan Solution: Teddy Bears, because of the period’s emphasis on the Symbolic Parents to AIDS Orphans. need for white males to demonstrate hyper- Christs [sic] Light Techniques. masculinity that would protect the white http://www.christslight.org/ “race” from degeneration (Bederman 1995). english/aids_babies/teddy.htm Theodore Roosevelt was an exemplar of the (accessed May 7, 2009). “strenuous life” devoted to countering what Anderson, H. Allen. 1986. The Chief: Ernest he deemed to be the deleterious effects of sen- Thompson Seton and the Changing timental femininity on white boys, especially West. College Station, TX: Texas A those of the social elite (Lears 2009; Roosevelt & M University Press. 1900, see especially Chapter X, “The Ameri- can Boy”). Andrews, Tamatha Rabb. 2004. The Use of Teddy Bears to Help 5. This does not mean that adult popular cul- Develop Interpersonal Context ture was devoid of teddy bear imagery (see, to Promote Intrinsic Motivation. for example, Hillier 1985) but these were primarily in the form of comic foil that extended Revista Electrónica Actualidades the long history of bears in sites of entertain- Investigativas en Educación 4 (2): ment (Brunner 2007) to satiric association 1-18. http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/ with Roosevelt, rather than as the serious redalyc/pdf/447/44740212.pdf contender for adult emotional intimacy that (accessed May 15, 2008). they would become, and that they already Bederman, Gail. 1995. Manliness & were in childhood culture. Civilization: A Cultural History of 6. The symbolism of the teddy bear within Gender and Race in the United States, AIDS activism is more complex than can be 1880-1917. Chicago: University of discussed here and is deserving of its own Chicago Press. article. Berryman, Clifford K. 1902a. Drawing 7. Of course, not all persons who are recipi- the Line in Mississippi. Segment ents of such “gifts” are comforted by them, of comic montage, The Passing and the practice can be absurd. For instance, Show, Washington Post, November I have been advised about the experiences of 16. workers at community homes for adults with ______. 1902b. After a Twentieth Century developmental challenges, who upon being Bear Hunt. Comic. Washington presented with teddies on the sudden death Post, November 19. of a resident, were surprised and discom- fited, rather than comforted by the action. Bratton, John. 1907. Teddy Bears’ Two- However, a lack of positive responsiveness Step. New York: M. Witmark & Sons.

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Brunner, Bernd. 2007 Bears: A Brief History. Grider, Sylvia. 2006. Spontaneous Shrines Trans. Lori Lantz. New Haven: and Public Memorialization. In Yale University Press. Death and Religion in a Changing Buchanan, Minor Ferris. 2002. Holt Collier: World. Ed. Kathleen Garcia-Foley, His Life, His Roosevelt Hunts, and 246-264. Armonk, NY: M. E. the Origin of the Teddy Bear. Jackson, Sharpe. MS: Centennial Press. Harris, Daniel. 1994. Making Kitsch from The Bumper Picture Book. 1920. London, AIDS: A Disease with a Gift Shop Edinburg and New York: Thos. of its Own. Harper’s Magazine, Nelson and Sons Ltd. July: 55-56. Calvert, Karin. 1992. Children in the House: Higgonet, Anne. 1998. Pictures of Innocence: The Material Culture of Early The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood, 1600-1900. Boston: Childhood. London: Thames and Northeastern University Press. Hudson Ltd. Cockrill, Pauline. 2001. The Teddy Bear Hillier, Mary. 1985. Teddy Bears: A Encyclopedia. New York: Dorling Celebration. Toronto: Methuen. Kindersley. Hochschild, Arlie Russell. 1983. The Crenshaw, Mary Mayo. 1926. Creator of Managed Heart: Commercialization the Teddy Bear: “Berryman the of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: Bearman”. The Mentor. August. University of California Press. Cross, Gary S. 2004. The Cute and the Cool: Kennedy, Jimmy. 1932. The Teddy Bears’ Wondrous Innocence and Modern Picnic. Henry Hall and the BBC American Children’s Culture. Dance Orchestra. Vocal: George Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pizzey. Cutler, Judy. 2004. Plush Animals as Knapp, Don. Time to Heal. www.cnn. Therapeutic Family Caregiving com (accessed May 4, 1995). Tools. National Post. March 27. Lears, T. J. Jackson. 1994. No Place Dalton, Kathleen. 2002. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. New York: of Grace: Antimodernism and Knopf. the Transformation of American Dearlake Design. “Cooking HolyBear™” Culture, 1880-1920. Chicago: http://www.deerlake.com/ University of Chicago Press. teddybears/cook.html (accessed ______. 2009. Rebirth of a Nation: The March 20, 2009) Making of Modern America, ______. “Sweet 16 9 Inch HolyBear™” 1877-1920. New York: http://www.deerlakestore.com/ HarperCollins. holy-bears/sweet16.htm (accessed Longman, Lauren. 1992. Goffman March 20, 2009) meets Marx at the Shopping Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2001. Welcome to Mall. In Alienation, Society, and Cancerland: A Mammogram Leads to a Cult of Pink Kitsch. the Individual: Continuity and Harper’s Magazine. November. Change in Theory and Research Gould, Stephen Jay. 1967. Ontogeny and Eds.R. Felix Guyer and Walter Phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: R. Heinz. NJ: Transaction Harvard University Press. Publishers: 107-124.

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Lutts, Ralph H. 1990. The Nature Fakers: Oldmeadow, Cecilia. 1911. The Two Bears. Wildlife, Science and Sentiment. In Blackie’s Children’s Annual. Golden, CO: Fulcrum. London: Blackie & Sons. Maniera, Linda. 2001. Christie’s Century One Bear Bagged. 1902. Washington Post, of Teddy Bears. London: Pavilion November 15. House. One Bear Falls Prey to President’s Party. McPhail, David. 2002. The Teddy Bear. New 1902. New York Times, November York: Henry Holt and Company. 15. Miner, Janis. If Teddy Bears Ruled Pell, Doug. 2002. Happy Birthday, Teddy the World. http://www. Bear. Audio CD. Teddy Bear Tunes, interfaithunity.com/ministribies/ Volume 1. New York: Teddy Bear tb_poem.htm (accessed December Tunes. 4, 2004). Pfeiffer, Günther. 2005. 125 years Steiff Mississippi Legislature. 2002. Regular Company history. Bonn-Oberkassel, Session House Bill 951. http:// Germany: Heel Verlag. billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/ President’s Trip. 1902. New York Times, documents/2002/html/ November 11. HB/0900-0999/HB00951SG.htm Quiet Day in Camp. 1902. Washington (accessed January 25, 2005). Post, November 17. Moose, Charles. 2002. Teddy Bear Myths Roosevelt, Theodore. 1900. The Strenuous & Legends. Teddy Bear and Friends, life. Essays and Addresses. New February. York: Century Co. Moran, Joe. 2002. Childhood and nostalgia Ross, Dorothy. G. 1972. Stanley Hall: The in contemporary culture. European Psychologist as Prophet. Chicago: Journal of Cultural Studies 5.2: 155- University of Chicago Press. 173. Seeman, Melvin. 1959. On the Meaning of Mullins, Linda. 2002. The Teddy Bear Alienation. American Sociological Men: Theodore Roosevelt & Clifford Review 24: 783-91. Berryman, 2nd ed. Grantsville, MD: Seton, Ernest Thomson. 1900. Johnny Bear. Hobby House Press. Scribner’s Magazine, December: Murphy, Frank. 2000. The Legend of the 658-683. Teddy Bear. Chelsea, MI.: Sleeping Sinkler, George. 1972. The Racial Attitudes Bear Press. of American Presidents from Abraham Nash, Roderick Frazier. 1982. Wilderness Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt. New and the American Mind, 4th ed. New York: Anchor Books. Haven: Yale University Press. Spinoza…the Bear who Speaks from Oklahoma City National Memorial the Heart!™ http://www. & Museum. http://store. spinozabear.com/faqs.html oklahomacitynationalmemorial. (accessed March 16, 2009) org/ (accessed July 5, 2009). Spinoza Bear. Products for Alzheimer’s ______. 2008. The Hope Trunk: Learning Disease. ElderCare Resource Resources for Children. Oklahoma Center. http://www. City: Oklahoma City National eldercareresourcecenter.com/ Memorial Foundation.

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NewProducts/dolls_stuffed_ Waddell, Martin. 1994/ 1998. When the animals.htm (accessed January 25, Teddy Bears Came. Cambridge, 2009) MA: Candlewick Press. Strauss, Valerie. 2001. Shipments Watts, Sarah. 2003. Rough Rider in the of Comfort. The Washington White House: Theodore Roosevelt Post, October 4. http://www. and the Politics of Desire. Chicago: highbeam.com/doc/1P2-483690. University of Chicago Press. html (accessed March 7, 2009). Waugh, Evelyn. 1945. Brideshead Revisited. Sturken, Marita. 2007. Tourists of History: Boston: Little, Brown. Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism White, Janel and Patricia Cowan. from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero. Sask. [Saskatchewan] People Durham, NC: Duke University Aid Americans. The Leader- Press. Post. http://www.canada.com Taylor, Emerson. 1907. The Little White (accessed September 29, 2001). Bear. Ladies’ Home Journal, April. Winnicott, Donald. 1953. Transitional Teddy Bear Baby Spoon. 1907. Objects and Transitional Advertisement. Ladies’ Home Phenomena: A Study of the First Journal, June. Not-me Possession. International Teddy Bears for Hope. http://www. Journal of Psycho-analysis 34: 89-97. teddybearsforhope.org/ (accessed Workman, Bill. 2001. Teddy bear cupboard November 26, 2007). almost bare: Shortage curtails _____. “Donate” http://www. shipments to Sept. 11 victims. The Teddybearsforhope.org/Donate San Francisco Chronicle, October 24. (accessed November 26, 2007) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ TeddysRule. http://www.cyberus. article.cgi?f=c/a/2001/10/24 ca/~rocksoft/teddysrule/ (accessed January 20, 2009). (accessed May 22, 2009, site now Zaretsky, Eli. 1976. Capitalism, the Family, discontinued). and Personal Life. New York: Toasted Corn Flakes. 1907. Advertisement. Harper & Row. Ladies’ Home Journal, January. Turkle, Sherry. 2006. A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship. American Association for Artificial Intelligence Technical Report Series, July. Varga, Donna. 2009a. Babes in the Woods: Wildernss Aesthetics in Children’s Stories and Toys, 1830-1915. Society and Animals 17: 187-205. ______. 2009b. Teddy’s Bear and the Sociocultural Transfiguration of Savage Beasts into Innocent Children, 1890-1920. The Journal of American Culture 32.2: 98-113.

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Daniel Thomas Cook Rutgers University-Camden USA

n an overnight layover in Lon- don at a hotel near Heathrow airport, I took a needed walk af- Oter an eight-hour flight. In this placeless landscape, I happened upon a soaking wet teddy bear affixed to a mesh fence on a bridge at the airport’s entrance. In- stantly, I knew I was in the presence of a memorial—someone had perished at or near this spot, or perhaps on a flight that originated from, or was bound for, Heathrow. Indeed, I found “We miss you, Micky!” scribbled in black marker on the fence nearby. An unmistakable symbol of specialness, this teddy bear infused an otherwise dreary, run-of-the mill site with sentiment. Donna Varga’s piece offers a way to comprehend how it is that a plush bear would become such a readily recognizable symbol of loss and object of comfort with her historically informed kind of protective aura as it became a analysis of the making of this icon of gift given to soothe children (and others) sentiment and sentimentality. We learn during crises. Varga’s analysis here opens from her about the muddled origins of up interesting avenues of inquiry into the teddy bear story and the making of it thinking about the relationship between into a modern myth whereby President commodity, mythological production and Teddy Roosevelt’s actions are rendered consumption. It also points the way to magnanimous in the journalistic considering how narratives may become accounts of a particular hunting trip in congealed, transformed, or preserved in 1902. But, it was when the soft, cuddly material forms; shared and exchanged on bruin subsequently was brought under a large scale only when mass produced. the auspices of factory production that In the same instance, unfortunately, the mythological status of the teddy bear the perspective brought to bear on transformed into a negotiable symbolic the role and place of the teddy bear in currency. As the features of the plush toy emotional life evinces a myopic view became standardized by mass production, of what commodities and promotion so too did its association with childhood can and can’t do and what people innocence, taking on, as Varga notes, a

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can and can’t do with them. Strewn unstated belief that, once commercialized, throughout Varga’s essay are strong an object retains some kind of taint that statements—unsupported with evidence renders inauthentic most any practice or that appeal to a reader’s sense of associated with it. likelihood—regarding how the teddy Varga thus sees the teddy bear bear was received and what it has meant primarily and ultimately as an artificial to children and adults over the course symbol-object that “replaces real social of the century. For instance, the reader and political engagements with a is told that the teddy provided parents dehumanizing relationship to things.” It with an object they could give their is artificial because it was borne of, and children to satisfy “their own emotional exists in, the realm of commercial goods needs to experience the world as new and and commodity production. She reads joyful.” As well, children learned “moral acts of children and adults alike to offer lessons” from the extension of the teddy the teddy bear as a gesture of comfort (or bear’s protective status. In the end, Varga sympathy or communion) as evidence that asserts, the teddy bear has been made that they understand it to have magical into an object of therapeutic culture as powers which, in the end, “results in a in, for instance, the way it was used as metaphysical transcendence of, rather part of the emotional comfort extended than confrontation with, the realities to AIDS patients and to those affected by of an alienated life.” The elisions and the Oklahoma City and September 11, presumptions made here are manifold. It 2001 terrorist attacks. is entirely plausible that many who gift My concern with these interpretations the bear understand very well in their has little to do with their truth value or own terms that “it” is not “magical” in the extent to which they reflect some itself, but that it is the gesture, the very reality. No doubt, the teddy bear has expression of sentiment to known and taken on iconic status, infused perhaps unknown others—aided by a shared, with a good measure of therapeutic known icon—that constitutes the social power. The concern I have, rather, magic of human relationality. That the centers on the way that Varga presents bear was at one time a commodity need these (and other) uses and meanings of not completely preempt the meaning and the teddy bear as singular, primary, and intent of actions made with it. essentially exhaustive of the object’s In seeing sentiment that is expressed uses and meanings. In laying out the with commercial products as inauthentic historical trajectory of this cultural object and co-opted, Varga thereby forecloses as becoming an increasingly unified, analysis right at the point when it could shared public symbol of comfort, Varga yield important insights. Work by presumes to know/theorizes the place of Appaduari (1986) and Kopytoff (1986) on the teddy bear in the everyday emotional the social biography of things suggests life of people in their less public, that something produced as commodity more local contexts and settings. This need not retain that status and can be theoretical extension is made possible transformed by the social lives and social by an adherence to a clearly present but processes in which it is embedded. As

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well, Douglas and Isherwood (1979) Works Cited and Zelizer (2005), in their own ways, Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. Introduction: demonstrate how social relations and Commodities and the Politics of social uses of things can frame goods Value. In The Social Life of Things. which are then not necessarily trapped Arjun Appadurai, ed. Cambridge: in semantic confines of their original Cambridge University Press. production. Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. 1979. The To be sure, it is important and World of Goods. New York: W. W. necessary to retain a critical stance with Norton. regard to the interests and forces of Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. The Cultural Biography commercial production. One need not of Things: Commoditization as be Pollyannaish about the power and Process. reach of capitalism when advocating In The Social Life of Things. Arjun for multi-vocal, polysemous readings of Appadurai, ed. Cambridge: commercial goods and related practices. Cambridge University A critical stance, however, that also Press. theorizes social actors as merely duped Zelizer, Viviana. 2005. The Purchase of by capital and who cannot see through Intimacy. Princeton: Princeton the haze of commodity fetishism does University Press. not assist in extending understanding because it does not engage with the local, grounded hows and whys of material and symbolic consumption. I do not know the details of what inspired those to memorialize Micky at Heathrow with a teddy bear, but I certainly would not presume their gesture and sentiment to be artificial because their chosen symbol once had economic exchange value.

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Teddy Bear Culture[s] Furthermore, her essay pays particular attention to the phenomenon of using Jacqueline Fulmer teddy bears to commemorate national tragedies. I am encouraged to see this University of California, Berkeley topic receiving scholarly treatment, as USA this memorial practice seems to be a lightening rod: its ability to bind some people together during crisis seems onna Varga’s “Gifting the Bear equally matched by its ability to repulse and a Nostalgic Desire for others. Varga’s essay is representative of Childhood Innocence” expands how the practice appears to the observers uponD her earlier work on the development in the latter group. and social history of the teddy bear I would like to address two issues that toy, as it appears in “Teddy’s Bear and come up in the reading of Varga’s essay: the Sociocultural Transfiguration of the question of “culture[s]” in the context Savage Beasts Into Innocent Children, of teddy bear use and the question of 1890–1920” (Varga 2009). Here, however, causality with regard to various factors she goes much further. Varga analyzes that influence the use of the teddy bear. adult attachment to the stuffed animal, As someone involved in both cultural provides us with some theories as to the studies and folkloristics, I would enjoy nature of that attachment, and ultimately seeing the topic that Varga names “teddy states that the “‘gifting’ of teddy bears to bear culture” expanded upon further. For adults and children in response to social example, does the essay’s phrase “teddy or personal crises denies possibilities bear culture” apply primarily to North for meaningful human interactions and American bear owners, to all English- social change.” speaking owners, to all teddy bear Overall, the essay provides much owners exposed to capitalism anywhere, food for thought. The material on late or to an actual subculture that varies its nineteenth and early twentieth century practices according to region? concepts of “animal-child symbiosis” If there is such a thing as “teddy bear that Varga provides serves the essay well, culture,” in the sense of a subculture of and she substantiates this exposition with doll collectors who own, buy, display, close analysis of relevant literature and repair, alter, make, give, and promote illustrations. These sections contribute to teddy bears, then there will be even more a growing body of work on the changing material to explore in the future. Varga views of the child and the concept of offers proof of it being a self-sustaining childhood innocence. Also of interest is folk group by listing some in-group terms Varga’s explanation of how the image of used among English-speaking adherents. Teddy the president became wedded to In-group jargon, as Alan Dundes notes the image of teddy the soft toy, both of in his work helps members affirm group which seem to have fanned the flames of identity and helps create awareness each other’s public appeal, particularly of who is, or is not, part of the group in the United States. (Dundes 1989, 30-31). Such terminology

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exists within any folk group, as I note in and friends of their safety” (Clay 2002, my own work on different groups of doll 144). Note that “bear giftings” take only owners. My book Doll Culture in America a subordinate role in the outpouring of (under development with University support. In other words, as other doll Press of Mississippi) shows that there are collectors, doll groups, and group-related many Americans who creatively express writings I’ve studied over the last few their identity through the medium of decades have stressed, whatever doll a dolls (including soft toys like teddy group emphasizes becomes a means for bears) and that they constitute a thriving interaction, a portal for human contact. and diverse subculture. The contacts that doll people have with In addition, examining teddy bear each other, which originate in the practice practices from the point of view of of their hobby, can turn into sources of material culture studies or folklore would practical and emotional support. mean accounting for the first-person This essay, as well as Varga’s prior insights of members of that culture. That, work on teddy bears, provides a start to in turn, would mean spending time in addressing the actual practices of teddy the field, as I have, talking to actual teddy bear culture(s). Future treatments will bear owners. When one talks to teddy be even more helpful if readers could bear owners in person and reads their see teddy bear cultures, especially with own accounts and documents closely, regards to the memorial use Varga one finds that “teddy bear culture,” as describes, placed in comparative context interpreted by those who practice it in with folk practices, such as mourning the United States, places great emphasis rituals, as examined by folklorists. on person-to-person relationships. When placed in that broader context, I would venture to say that teddy the material culture aspect of teddy bear bear owners number among the most use may come across as less alarming. socially active, as well as socially aware, If the mementi mori habits of nineteenth of doll group participants. In one set of century New England, for example, had circumstances mentioned in the essay, been taken up by the mass media and for instance, 9/11 drives focused heavily mass production techniques of the last on raising funds for victims’ families twenty years, might we have seen piles (Teddy 2002, 12; Clay 2002, 144). In this of synthetic hair embroideries left by case, Marianne Clay writes, Teddy bear Ground Zero instead? web sites and mailing lists “whose My point is that this essay opens topics are normally restricted to bears” the door to additional intriguing were “filled with prayers, outpourings possibilities when examining the teddy of sympathy and support, queries and bear phenomenon, beyond that of reassurances about the safety of friends, the influence of Teddy Roosevelt as and news of candlelight vigils, bear a paternalistic “redeemer” of nature- giftings, and relief efforts. In places children. 1 Varga spends time discussing where phone service became difficult, the power of the media with a close eye online bulletin boards provided the best towards the myriad ways popular and way for some people to assure family political culture fed on each other at

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the time. But prying into media history by either boys or girls at a time when a little further, if we take into account children’s playthings were segregated the amazing growth of media power by gender, in enabling the toys to hold in Western societies from the turn of expressive poses, and in hitting upon the century onward, coupled with the one animal form that struck a cross- West’s growing ability to distribute the cultural, cross-gender, and more highly first generation of mass-produced soft anthropomorphized note than any other toys across multiple borders, we can ask (Pfeiffer 2005, 17-59; Cross 2004, 54; Cross what the effects of these forces were on 1997, 95; Calvert 1992, 117). any mourning ritual with the power to In fact, the details of the production comfort large numbers of people. history of the teddy bear make me Regarding the question of causality, wonder about the chain of causality set tracing the power of the teddy bear up in Varga’s essay. While no original back to its namesake’s influential tale bears have survived (the original string represents only part of the story. If the joints were too weak), Steiff does have Roosevelt-as-redeemer story had, in fact, records that show the development of the given birth to the peculiar staying power bear from a fierce to a babyish persona. of the teddy bear, as Varga argues, then Some of these documents predate how should we regard the examples of the Michtoms’/Ideal’s involvement. British and German teddy bear culture For instance, Mary Hillier, Günther sprinkled throughout the essay? Teddy Pfeiffer, and Leyla Maniera trace the Roosevelt would have been seen as much development of Richard Steiff’s design less of a “redeemer” outside of America. for Bär 55PB, known then as “Petsy” While most of the popular and literary (short for Petz [Bruin]), to the life study sources cited in the essay are American, sketches Steiff drew while he was still an the impact of the first mass-produced art student in Stuttgart before the turn of soft toy came from Germany. The Steiff the century (Maniera 2001, 26-27; Hillier family’s application of a short pile 1985, 21-22; Pfeiffer 2005, 10-13). Hillier plush fabric to assembly line production claims that Steiff was influenced by one changed everything. As Wendy Lavitt’s particular bear from the pre-Roosevelt American Folk Dolls (1982) and Max von era, a performing bear who would wave Boehn’s Dolls and Puppets (1956 [1929]) at children, and who was trained by one demonstrate, soft playthings have of Steiff’s acquaintances (Hillier 1985, been made and cherished by children 22). The original, somewhat fearsome, in the West and elsewhere long before Steiff bears were whittled down from the mass production, but the Steiff family’s original large bear on wheels in the late innovation was to take what was once nineteenth century, to the more familiar, a private artifact and put it on public anthropomorphized bear kingpin skittle display in stores and catalogs in multiple in 1892, to the hump-backed, long-armed, countries (Cross 1997, 8). The Steiffs were string-jointed initial 1902-03 design, and influential in four ways: in introducing finally to the more “friendly,” less wild- plush animals into mass production, in looking 1905 disk-jointed design (Pfeiffer popularizing soft toys that could be used 2005, 8-9, 13, 16, 46, 50-52; Maniera 2001,

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24-25)2. So, if a German company, Steiff, Notes began developing an anthropomorphized 1. For additional reading of the potential soft animal design before Roosevelt went connections between the image of the teddy on his famous hunting trip, could there bear and imperialism, see Donna Haraway have been multiple forces at work in (1984-1985) “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: imbuing the teddy bear “with exceptional Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New status,” as Varga writes? York City, 1908-1936,” Social Text. 11:20-64. 2. The metal rod design was an Therefore, the supposition of a single intermediate, short-lived design from 1905. trajectory of influence and the limited approach to the study of teddy bear owners was where the essay faltered for me, as a reader. I agree that overuse of Works Cited teddy bears in lieu of person-to-person caregiving would be inappropriate. But Calvert, Karin. 1992. Children in the singling out such practices as entirely House: The Material Culture representative of certain folk groups, of Early Childhood, 1600-1900. if we agree to designate “teddy bear Boston: Northeastern University culture” as a set of folk groups rather Press. than a malaise, does not provide a Clay, Marianne. 2002. Cybearspace: The complete picture. As cultural critics, Online World of Teddy Bears: folklorists, and anthropologists so often Comfort, Unity, and Compassion do, perhaps we might step back and take Online. Teddy Bear and Friends. into account that teddy bear users may February, 144. http://www. constitute their own folkloric groups, and teddybearandfriends.com therefore acknowledge that these users Cockrill, Pauline. 2001. The Teddy Bear might carry out folk practices at variance Encyclopedia. New York: Dorling to what might be expected for citizens of Kindersley. North America, Germany, or the United Cross, Gary S. 1997. Kids’ Stuff: Toys and Kingdom By so doing, we can observe the Changing World of American that, like any folk entity scattered among Childhood. Cambridge, MA: different countries and regions, there Harvard University Press. is no one type of “teddy bear culture.” _____. 2004. The Cute and the Cool: In closing, I look forward to reading Wondrous Innocence and Modern more from Donna Varga, especially as American Children’s Culture. she makes new discoveries about the Oxford: Oxford University Press. culture(s) of the teddy bear. I thank her Dundes, Alan. 1989. Folklore Matters. for this welcome attention to important Knoxville: The University of facets of material culture as they present Tennessee Press. themselves through the use of soft toys. Fulmer, Jacqueline. 2007. Folk Women and Indirection in Morrison, Ní Dhuibhne, Hurston, and Lavin. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing.

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Haraway, Donna. 1984-1985. “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936.” Social Text 11: 20-64. Hillier, Mary. 1985. Teddy Bears: A Celebration. Toronto: Methuen. Lavitt, Wendy. 1982. American Folk Dolls. New York: Knopf. Maniera, Linda. 2001. Christie’s Century of Teddy Bears. London: Pavilion House. Pfeiffer, Günther. 2005. The Story of the Steiff Teddy Bear: An Illustrated History from 1902. Newton Abbot, Devon, U.K.: David and Charles. Steiff. Club website. http://www.steiff.com (accessed 2 July 2010). Teddy Bear and Friends. 2002. http:// www.teddybearandfriends.com Varga, Donna. 2009. “Teddy’s Bear and the Sociocultural Transfiguration of Savage Beasts into Innocent Children, 1890–1920.” The Journal of American Culture 32 (2): 98-113. von Boehn, Max. 1956 [1929]. Dolls and Puppets. Boston: Charles T. Branford Company.