Stuffed Animals
A stuffed toy is a toy doll with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, stuffed animals, and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be called soft toys or cuddly toys. The stuffed toy originated from the Steiff company of Germany in the late 19th century and gained popularity following the creation of the "Teddy" bear in the United States in 1903, at the same time the German toy inventor Richard Steiff designed a similar bear. In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy. In the 1970s, London-based Hamleys, the world's oldest toy store, bought the rights to Paddington Bear stuffed toys. In the 1990s, Ty Warner created Beanie Babies, a series of animals stuffed with plastic pellets that were popular as collector's items. Stuffed toys are made in many different forms, but most resemble real animals (sometimes with exaggerated ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Popular Culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving force behind popular culture is the mass appeal, and it is produced by what cultural analyst Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry". Heavily influenced in modern times by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing an individual's attitudes towards certain topics. However, there are various ways to define pop culture. Because of this, popular culture is something that can be defined in a variety of conflicting ways by different people across diff ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Best Sock Monkeys
Best or The Best may refer to: People * Best (surname), people with the surname Best * Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer Companies and organizations * Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain * Best Lock Corporation, a lock manufacturer * Best Manufacturing Company, a farm machinery company * Best Products, a chain of catalog showroom retail stores * Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, a public transport and utility provider * Best High School (other) Acronyms * Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, a project to assess global temperature records * BEST Robotics, a student competition * BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport * Bootstrap error-adjusted single-sample technique, a statistical method * Bringing Examination and Search Together, a European Patent Office initiative * Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training, a program of the Sustainable South Bronx organization * Smart BEST, a Japanese experimental train * Brihanmumbai Electr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named after the Greek island of Ithaca. A college town, Ithaca is home to Cornell University and Ithaca College. Nearby is Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3). These three colleges bring thousands of students to the area, who increase Ithaca's seasonal population during the school year. As of 2020, the city's population was 32,108. History Early history Native Americans lived in this area for thousands of years. When reached by Europeans, this area was controlled by the Cayuga tribe of Indians, one of the Five Nations of the ''Haudenosaunee'' or Iroquois League. Jesuit missionaries from New France (Quebec) are said to have had a mission to convert the Cayuga as early as 1657. Saponi and Tutelo peoples, Siouan-speaking tribes, lat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Ithaca Journal
''The Ithaca Journal'' is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper published in Ithaca, New York. It is locally edited and printed in Johnson City, New York, and publishes Monday through Saturday. It has been owned by Gannett since 1912. Publications Daily newspaper ''The Ithaca Journal'' publishes a daily morning newspaper Monday through Saturday. No edition is printed on Sundays. Starting on March 27, 2006, ''The Ithaca Journal'' included four sections Monday through Friday. The first section includes local, national and international news. The second section includes several pages of city and county news and sports. The third section, which was launched March 27, 2006, is called Life. The front of this section includes a rotating selection of features: *Mondays: Food and Personal Finance *Tuesdays: Outdoors & Recreation and Family *Wednesdays: Science & Environment *Thursdays: Health *Fridays: House & Garden In addition, Life also includes an Arts & Entertainment page that inclu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arnold Print Works
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the United States. Built by the Arnold Print Works, which operated on the site from 1860 to 1942, the complex was used by the Sprague Electric company before its conversion. MASS MoCA originally opened with 19 galleries and of exhibition space in 1999. It has expanded since, including the 2008 expansion of Building 7 and the May 2017 addition of roughly 130,000 square feet when Building 6 was opened. In addition to housing galleries and performing arts spaces, it also rents space to commercial tenants. It is the home of the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, where composers and performers from around the world come to create new music. The festival, started in 2001, includes concerts in galleries for three weeks during the summer. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muslin
Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured. Muslin of uncommonly delicate handspun yarn was handwoven in the Bengal region of South Asia and imported into Europe for much of the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 2013, the traditional art of weaving ''Jamdani'' muslin in Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. History In 1298 CE, Marco Polo described the cloth in his book ''The Travels''. He said it was made in Mosul, Iraq. The 16th-century English traveller Ralph Fitch lauded the muslin he saw in Sonargaon. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Mughal Empire, Mughal Bengal Subah, Bengal emerged as the foremost muslin exporter in the world, with Mughal Dhaka as capital of the worldwide muslin trade. It became highly popular in 18th-century France a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ithaca Kitty
The Ithaca Kitty, originally known as "The Tabby Cat", was a popular stuffed toy in the United States which started a fad for plush toys that lasted from its introduction in 1892 until after World War I. History The Ithaca Kitty was inspired by a gray tabby cat named Caesar Grimalkin in Ithaca, New York. The cat's owners, William Hazlitt Smith and Celia Smith, had the cat photographed and had Celia's sister-in-law, Charity Smith, paint a likeness of the cat onto a three-piece pattern designed by Celia. Although Grimalkin was a polydactyl cat with seven toes on each front paw, the Smiths felt that five toes appeared more normal and patented the "toy animal figure" in October 1892. The design was sold by the Smiths for one cent a yard to Arnold Print Works, which then sold the printed pattern as "The Tabby Cat" on half a yard of muslin for ten cents each in late 1892. Nearly 200,000 were sold that first holiday season. The toy was very successful nationwide, making appearances at the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Upholstery
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something. ''Upholstery'' comes from the Middle English word ''upholder'', which referred to an artisan who makes fabric furnishings. The term is equally applicable to domestic, automobile, airplane and boat furniture, and can be applied to mattresses, particularly the upper layers, though these often differ significantly in design. A person who works with upholstery is called an ''upholsterer''. An apprentice upholsterer is sometimes called an ''outsider'' or ''trimmer''. Traditional upholstery uses materials like coil springs (post-1850), animal hair (horse, hog and cow), coir, straw and hay, hessians, linen scrims, wadding, etc., and is done by hand, building each layer up. In contrast, today's upholsterers employ synthetic materials like dacron and vinyl, serpentine springs, and so on. Histor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pincushion
A pincushion (or pin cushion) is a small, stuffed cushion, typically across, which is used in sewing to store pins or needles with their heads protruding to take hold of them easily, collect them, and keep them organized. Pincushions are typically filled tightly with stuffing to hold pins rigidly in place. Magnetic pin cushions are also sometimes used; though technically they are not "cushions", they serve the same basic function of holding pins neatly. History The recorded origins of pincushions date back to the Middle Ages of Europe. In the English language, they became known by many names: "pimpilowes, pimpilos, pimplos, pimploes, pin-pillows, pin-poppets". In 1376, Jehanne de Mesnil was bequeathed a silver pin case in a French text called ''Testament of Advice'' written by a woman known as La Monteure, from Rouen. Other references to pin cases during the Medieval era exist. By the 16th century, these were supplanted by references to "pyn pillows". Some examples from variou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Felt
Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp–based rayon. Blended fibers are also common. Natural fibre felt has special properties that allow it to be used for a wide variety of purposes. "It is fire-retardant and self-extinguishing; it dampens vibration and absorbs sound; and it can hold large amounts of fluid without feeling wet..." History Felt from wool is one of the oldest known textiles. Many cultures have legends as to the origins of felt making. Sumerian legend claims that the secret of feltmaking was discovered by Urnamman of Lagash. The story of Saint Clement and Saint Christopher relates that the men packed their sandals with wool to prevent blisters while fleeing from persecution. At the end of their journey, the movement and sweat had turned the wool into f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |