Stuffed Animals Exist Because of This Very Sharp Object

There’s not much more of a classic plaything than a stuffed animal. There’s probably not a child’s room on Earth that hasn’t held at least one plushie iteration of some sort of fauna. They’re iconic enough that I assumed they were just something that humans naturally created, and that if something ever happened to us, a new civilization would start packing toy animals with whatever was puffy and within arm’s reach as a first order of business.

But it turns out that the modern stuffed animal has a very specific debut, and that comfort wasn’t their original purpose. 

The first ever stuffed animal was created around 1880 by a German seamstress named Margarete Steiff. Except, it wasn’t a stuffed animal she made, but a small pincushion in the shape of an elephant. It was supposed to be a fun, but functional bit of cloth and stuffing to hold pins. Except that children really enjoyed playing with the little elephant. And something might be able to be both a pincushion and a toy, but ideally not at the same time.

It didn’t take Steiff long after pioneering the plushie to follow up with one of its most iconic iterations. She stitched up various other animals for a while, but her biggest hit came in 1902. That was when Steiff, with help from her nephew Richard, released one of the world's first teddy bears. 

Stuffed animal enthusiasts may have already recognized the name Steiff, since they’re still one of the world’s foremost teddy bear manufacturers. The bears are definitely their premier offering, but if you visit their stores or headquarters, you’ll notice that they still offer a nod to the animal that started it all, too: the mighty elephant.