In 1902, Teddy Roosevelt went on a hunting trip, but he was three days in and he had yet to kill a bear. However, the next day he and his companions found an old bear, and they tied it to a tree for Roosevelt to shoot. Roosevelt deemed it unsportsmanlike, thus he didn't shoot it. A cartoonist by the name of Clifford Berryman illustrated the scene, and it went into publication in the Washington post on November 16th, 1962. As people recreated the scene the bear gradually got smaller and frailer. Later on, a New York candy shop owner named Morris Mitchom decided to sell two stuffed toy bears his wife had made. He asked Roosevelt for permission to call them the "Teddy bear". From my understanding, the sympathy felt for the bear in the cartoon by the masses, along with them becoming a fluffy toy for children is what made them appear more like big fluffy animals to people around the nation.