New fad – Teddy bears – all the rage 100 years ago

Teddy bears were the craze at Christmas a century ago. “TEDDY BEARS IN EVERY HOME,” prophesized a Bangor Daily News headline two weeks before the holiday in 1906. A few days after Christmas, the Bangor Daily Commercial did a survey and found that about 550 of the stuffed bears immortalizing President Teddy Roosevelt’s sportsmanlike refusal to shoot a bruin tied to a tree had been sold at local stores.

“Like other cities in the country, Bangor has taken up the Teddy Bear craze for fair, and one can hardly walk on the street but a youngster is seen with a Teddy Bear under his arm,” the Commercial said.

Teddy bears had seized the imaginations of adults as well. One of the most memorable events of the season was the teddy bear sliding party that took place on Cedar Street hill with the participants “dressed exactly like Bruin,” according to the Commercial. Teddy bear parties were becoming fashionable, claimed the paper, and probably before long grown people would be seen going along the streets with teddy bears under their arms.

If the Bangor newspapers are any indication, Christmas by the turn of the last century already had become a largely secular holiday dominated by teddy bears, Barney Oldfield windup autos and dolls that gave “regular Cissie Fitzgerald winks.” Adult presents for the rising middle class included Edison Phonographs, $250 otter fur-lined coats, sleighs and even new automobiles. There was some notice of church services and cursory coverage of the poor, but store advertising and news of gift and menu options, plus the endless social whirl, filled the papers.

A frenzied atmosphere prevailed just like today. “CHRISTMAS RUSH IS ON …” declared a breathless Commercial headline on Dec. 13. Money was the fuel. The Bangor Daily News ran many editorials on the Christmas spirit. But even then certain cynics had sniffed out the growing materialism. One scrooge wrote to ask whether this Christmas spirit bore any relation to the spirits sold in the dives along the waterfront.

A subversive essay titled “Our Commercial Christmas” in the Bangor Daily News on Christmas Day summed up such concerns: “Christmas is the Decoration day [Memorial Day] of a commercial age. Then, as on no other day, we face with compassion those who have fallen in our battles for wealth. For a moment we think of the thousands of children who have no share in that easy life we give our children. … we play at extending the spirit of the day to those who are the pawns of our industrial game. The Salvation Army lass, standing cold and numb on the street corner, collecting funds for Christmas baskets for the poor, reminds us of the wreckage left in the wake of our prosperity …”

The Christmas menus printed in the newspapers illustrated the wide gap in social circumstances. At the Penobscot Exchange, one of Bangor’s finer hotels, a visitor could expect to be served Blue Points on the Half Shell, Mock Turtle a l’Imperatrice, Baked Columbia Salmon a la Espagnole, Roast Vermont Turkey, Roast Molunkus Venison, Roast Haunch of Moose, Boiled Leg of Southdown Mutton au Capers, Filet de Game, Champignon Blanc, Croquettes D’Agneau, Pois Francais, Asparagus Tips au Croutes, Spinach Greens, Sweet Corn, Old-Fashioned Plum Pudding, Peach Pie, Fig Custard, Cherry Charlotte, Raspberry Snow, Oolong Tea, Salada Ceylon Tea and dozens of other items. A three-piece orchestra played classical music, perhaps to soothe the digestion.

At the other end of the spectrum, The Salvation Army was putting up between 100 and 125 baskets each containing free dinners for five people. They contained a 5-pound fowl, potatoes, squash, cranberries, coffee, sugar, apples, bread and pie. That Christmas, 32 of the Salvation Army’s 50 collection boxes were stolen – amounting possibly to $160 – by “the meanest kind of thieves,” the Bangor Daily News reported on Christmas Day.

The social round that occurred around Christmas and the new year was a study in contrasts as well. Among the most notable society events that year was a party for Miss Julia Robinson held at the home of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. D.A. Robinson, on Christmas Eve at which “guests are expected to go costumed as infants and small children.” Mr. and Mrs. E.E. Walker were giving a coming-out party for their daughter Francesca at Society Hall on Christmas night. On New Year’s Eve, Mr. and Mrs. Fred W. Ayer would give a dancing party at the same location for their daughter Helena. Similar events were listed.

Newspaper readers devoured such material hungrily. What they did not read about was the socializing in “The Acre” and other slums that ran along the waterfront unless, of course, there was a good sob story to be had. The papers always seemed to be able to dig one up each holiday season, although these stories rapidly disappeared as soon as the holiday was over. Such was the story told a few days after Christmas to a Commercial reporter by Mrs. Jennie Johnson, the city missionary.

About a month earlier a man and his wife had hired rooms on Cedar Street near where the teddy bear sliding party was held. They had a 5-month-old baby girl with them at first but soon made arrangements with a woman who lived on Third Street to take the infant for pay, reported the Commercial. The baby became ill, and when the woman tried to notify the mysterious parents, she found they had disappeared. The father had been arrested recently for intoxication and released at the plea of his wife. “The woman who is taking care of the child does not seem to think that the father and mother care for it in the least and says that the last time the mother saw it, she refused to kiss it,” the story related. “This is just one of the pitiful cases that has been brought to the attention of the authorities this winter.”

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net