Margaret Steiff, A Short Biography Part 2
As a young adult Margarete Steiff had started a dressmaking company with her two older sisters. This was started in a converted study on the ground floor of the family home. After her two older sisters married, she was the only Steiff still dressmaking. A manufacturer at a local felt factory Wilhelm Adolf Glatz married into the Steiff family and employed Margarete. This family connection allowed her to still work from her home and employ assistants to replace her two sisters. Wilhelm Glatz was a distinguished businessman, who is credited with encouraging Margarete to run her own business.
Wilhelm and Margarete Steiff were a successful combination as the felt produced at Wilhelm's factory was used to create ladies petticoats and children's coats. Sales increased year on year. This transformed the first floor of the Steiff family home into a little factory.
Over the years Margarete's brother Fritz Steiff became father to six sons and of course Margarete was the favourite Aunt.
Members of the Steiff family have always noted the special relationships Margarete created with the children of her family. She seemed to have a gift for using humour to make children more at ease. This family atmosphere permeated throughout the little factory and the Steiff home. It has been noted that working there was like working with your best friends.
In 1880 the story of Steiff as a company really began. Margarete Steiff herself noticed a felt elephant in a fashion magazine and decided to make eight to give as Christmas presents. These were of course extremely beautiful and were gratefully received by all 8 recipients.
These hand made felt elephants soon became the talk of the factory floor. Everyone wanted one of Margarete's little creations. This prompted the elephant to become a stock item at the factory. Elephants were created whenever demand for dressed left sufficient time.
Margarete's brother Fritz Steiff came up with an idea to sell them at the market in Heidenheim, two sacks of the animals were sent with him to use in this experiment.
Soft toy animals had never been invented at this point, thus they were an instant success and completely sold out.
As Margarete clearly had a talent for design as well as production, she was asked to create other soft toy animals. She created a kitten, lifelike dogs and a little pink pig. The Steiff family workshop became a "factory for felt articles and toys".
Fritz Steiff continued to be the one to inspire his sister to create new and innovative designs. He arranged to exhibit the first Steiff articles in a display of export samples in Stuttgart in 1883. Every year the business expanded rapidly prompting new designs and new models. This little company quickly became more important to Margarete and Fritz than the dressmaking. To give an example of the rapid growth Margarete invested 1460 marks for felt in 1886, 3700 marks in 1888 and 5070 marks in 1890.
Fritz Steiff took over his fathers building company in 1888 and soon persuaded Margarete to move from her cramped little factory in the Steiff home into a house with business premises purpose built to her requirements.
It had living space on the second floor where Margarete could see outside due to a large bay window. the soft felt toys were sold in the corner shop on the ground floor with its two display windows.
The firm that came to be called Steiff continued its positive growth for the years that followed. The first catalogue was produced in 1892. By this time the small felt animals which had originally only been elephants were not monkeys, a donkey, a camel, a horse, a mouse, a pig, a cat, a dog, a giraffe and a rabbit as well as elephants.
This small soft toy manufacturer was first entered in the commercial register as "Margarete Steiff, Filzwarenfabrik Giengen/Brenz" [Margarete Steiff, Felt goods factory Giengen/Brenz] on the 3rd March 1893.
Margarete worked on her passion with an iron will. In 1894 she was invited to St Gallen by a major toy dealer. Shortly afterwards, order started coming in from all over Germany. From Berlin to Rothenburg, and then from abroad.
When her brothers six sons reached adulthood she asked each of them to join the company. 5 of them were willing to do so and initially learned professions that suited their respective inclinations - designer, engineers and management experts. This was now truly a family run and managed business.
Leading up to Margaretes Death
The first representative began to present samples of Steiff products in 1894/95 - in addition to the goods produced by another company. The animals were also among those sold in Berlin businesses. Richard Steiff, Fritz's second oldest son, joined the company in 1897.
Richard Steiff had always been close to his Aunt from childhood. He fitted in perfectly with the whole operation, he combined genuine business acumen with high levels of creativity. He had attended art school in Stuttgart before going to university in England.
Accompanied by another member of staff, Richard Steiff represented Steiff at the Leipzig trade fair, at the time the turn over of the company was 90000 marks.
Richards brothers, Franz, Otto, Hugo and Paul, then joined Steiff one after the other with varying responsibilities from sales to manufacturing technology. Margarete still kept track of the company as a whole.
Margarete left nothing to chance. Steiff was her company and her reputation. She made herself personally responsible for reviewing work routines, motivation and quality control. At this point she still made most of the prototypes herself and was extremely critical of the products that Steiff produced. This is part of how Steiff became the symbol of quality in the soft toy industry.
Margarete was well aware that her soft toy animals were sold for the purpose of entertaining children thus she imposed stringent requirements on the quality of products. Her motto was always "The best is just good enough for our children".
Correspondingly only the best, highest quality materials were used. Animals were initially stuffed with sheep's wool, which was then replaced with wood shavings in the 1890's.
Even in the first Steiff catalogue the filling material was described as "soft, light and pure" (no animal hair, sawdust or cork waste). The Steiff soft toy animals were first introduced to Europe and then America.
Unfortunately for Margarete her beloved brother Fritz Steiff passed away in 1900, after this it was her relationship with her nephews that gave her the strength to drive the business forward. Richard in particular introduced many new products and came up with lots of ideas for increased production and quality, though Margarete still made most of the models herself.
Steiff was such a success that the factory was moved in 1903 to a two-storey building made almost entirely from concrete and glass with a ramp for easy wheelchair access to the second floor. Margaret was driven to the factory every day. She checked the products and colours. She applied finishing touches with a spray gun and went to see the employees who stuffed and stitched the animals. Her dedication was always absolute.
In 1902, Richard Steiff developed a new type of soft toy; with jointed arms and legs and proper fur made from mohair plush and glass eyes. At first Margarete questioned whether there was a market for relatively expensive animals, she also originally considered bears a bit ungainly.
This was a huge risk for Steiff as this teddy bear was much more expensive than the other animals and if the bear did not sell its production and stock would have cost Steiff a fortune and damaged the company.
In spite of Margaretes reservations she allowed Richard Steiff to persuade her and the bear was produced, though without success initially. They were first displayed at the Leipzig trade fair when an American bought all 3000 of them at last minute.
Bear PB became a smash hit at the World Exhibition in St. Louis. 12000 bears were sold, Margarete and Richard each received a gold medal and the Grand Prix – the highest prize possible – was awarded to the company.
Production increased to 1.7 million toy animals between 1903 and 1907. Steiff now had 400 workers on premises and 1800 women working from home. The Jointed bear set off on his march of conquest in America. Later he was named “teddy bear” by US president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt in 1906.
In 1907 competition soon necessitated the implementation of new measures. Nobody wanted to become involved in a price war and the Steiff family started looking ways to let people know when they were buying a Steiff bear and not a lesser imitation.
Franz Steiff came up with the idea of riveting a button to one ear of each animal. The “Button in Ear” was born. This is the trademark of a real Steiff animal today, over 100 years later.
Steiff hit hard times in 1908 as the American economy became under pressure. Orders were cancelled and large quantities of finished bears were turned away.
Margarete went through the upswing and the crisis full of activity. She was growing noticeably wear, though, and could often be seen sitting at her window, watching the comings and goings in the company from there. She seemed to know that her life was coming to an end.
Margarete Steiff was just 61 years old when she dies on 9th April 1909. What had originally seemed to be a hopeless life became a shining example of what can be achieved with courage, strength, willpower and most of all heart.
The Steiff family, the staff and the people of Giengen found it difficult to get over her death.
Steiff the company continued on without her right through to today. They are an example to company the world over who are trying to create quality items.
No comments:
Post a Comment