Margarete Steiff
Appearance
Margarete Steiff (July 24, 1847 – May 9, 1909), was a seamstress who in 1880 founded Margarete Steiff GmbH, making toy stuffed animals.
Biography
Born in Giengen, Germany she used a wheelchair, due to polio that she contracted as a baby. She started making stuffed animals as a hobby.
These toys began as elephants, which were originally a design Steiff found in a magazine and at first sold as pincushions to her friends. However, children began playing with them, and in the years following she went on to design many other successful animal-themed toys for children, such as dogs, cats and pigs. She designed and made most of the prototypes herself.
She died of pneumonia in Giengen.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Margarete Steiff.
- http://www.museocasalis.org/
- BBC News: "Teddy bear celebrates 100th birthday"
- Margarete Steiff at IMDb