Margarete Steiff was born in Giengen in Southern Germany in 1847. At two years of age she contracted polio and later was confined to a wheelchair. However despite this she attended school with other children of her age and later took sewing and needlework classes. She also enjoyed music and learnt to play the zither; in fact she became proficient enough to teach the instrument. With the money she earned from giving lessons she bought her first sewing machine which was also the first one ever seen in Giengen.
Margarete began work as a seamstress in 1879. At first she worked from her clients' homes but later branched out into selling felt clothing by mail order. From the left over material she began making elephant pincushions from a pattern she had found in a magazine and these proved so popular that she also began making other toy animals adding a poodle, donkey and bear to her range. Soon she didn't need to sew clothes in order to earn her living and in recognition of this in1893 she changed the name of her business from "The Felt Mail Order Company" to "The Felt Toy Company". By this time Margarete had four employees as well as 10 outworkers but by 1897 the company would expand to 10 employees and 30 outworkers with an annual turnover of 90,000 marks or £38,000.
The first Steiff catalogue was produced in 1892 and included the first version of her bears. These were soft-filled with straw, made of mohair plush or fur and either stood rigidly on their hind legs or on all fours. The first bears were representations of their wild cousins and did not have the "sweet" expression that we have now come to associate with the teddy bear. Their classic features were a protruding shaved muzzle with a stitched snout, a hump bank, long arms with spoon shaped paws, and narrow ankles with long feet. All early Steiff bears had boot buttons for eyes however glass ones were substituted for bears sold to the English market prior to 1914. The company also supplied pull-along bears, revolving bears, rideable bears, and even sets of bear skittles!
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