Margarete steiff biography meaning
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Who created the famous Steiff Teddy Bear?
4min Article
The oldest and best known make of Teddy Bears are Steiff bears, which are popular today with both adult collectors and children. But who created the Steiff company and came up with the idea of the Teddy Bear as a toy? This is the story of Margarete Steiff, a creative businesswoman of the late nineteenth century who overcame physical disabilities and gender stereo typing of her time to become a successful innovator and the founder of the Steiff company.
Who was Margarete Steiff?
Margarete was born in Germany in 1847. As a small child she became ill with polio which paralysed both her legs and weakened her right arm. She attended school regularly as a child, not always common for a girl at this time, and throughout her life used an early design of a wheelchair to aid her mobility. She was quoted as saying "freedom is believing in yourself" and both in childhood and in her adult life Margarete found ways to achieve her bus
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175th birthday of Margarete Steiff
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Margarete Steiff with teddy bear, she rarely had herself photographed with her teddy bears; on the right, excerpt from the Trademark Directory of 1905
Toy inventor and fighter for a self-determined life
The "Knopf im Ohr" ("Button in Ear") is one of the most traditional German brands. Yet its founder Margarete Steiff had to overcome health hurdles before she could become a successful entrepreneur. She was born on July 24, 1847 in Giengen an der Brenz in Württemberg and would have celebrated her den 175 birthday these days.
Margarete was a lively child and grew up carefree until she contracted polio at the age of one and a half. From then on, her legs are paralyzed and she can only move her right hand with pain. She is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life, and several cures for the disease are unsuccessful. This means that marriage fryst vatten out of the question for her in the second half of the 19th century, nor does she have an
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History of Steiff Bears
Margarete Steiff GmbH is the oldest and most famous teddy bear and soft toy manufacturer in the world. The history of the company sometimes reads like a fairytale! Margarete Steiff contracted polio when she was just 18 months old, which meant that she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
However, this spirited and courageous young woman was not going to let her life be defined by her disability. She learnt sewing and tailoring and soon became a very skilled seamstress. She started up her own small business, initially making ladies' and children's clothes, but soon diversified into other products.
Little did she know, when she was working on a little felt elephant to be used as a pincushion, that she was laying the foundation stone for the international company of the future, Margarete Steiff GmbH.
Margarete Steiff founded her company in 1880 and was joined in 1897 by her nephew Richard Steiff. He was to become the most important figure in