Steiff created the teddy bear known as the Steiff Bear in 1903.
German seamstress Margarete Steiff founded the company in 1880, initially making felt clothing and later soft toys. Her nephew Richard Steiff designed a jointed toy bear based on real bears, and the company presented the model at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903.
An American buyer ordered thousands of the bears after seeing them at the fair. Around the same period, Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 bear-hunting story inspired the name “teddy bear,” although the exact path from the event to the commercial name involved several toy makers and sellers.
Steiff's bears became famous for their movable limbs and the company's “button in ear” trademark, introduced in 1904. Steiff is often credited with making the first commercially successful jointed teddy bear, but it was not the only early maker of bear toys.