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The Ithaca Kitty, originally known as "The Tabby Cat", was a popular
The Ithaca Kitty, originally known as "The Tabby Cat", was a popular stuffed toy
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 ...
in the United States which started a fad for plush toys that lasted from its introduction in 1892 until after World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
History
The Ithaca Kitty was inspired by a graytabby cat
A tabby is any domestic cat (''Felis catus'') with a distinctive 'M'-shaped marking on its forehead; stripes by its eyes and across its cheeks, along its back, and around its legs and tail; and (differing by tabby type), characteristic striped, d ...
named Caesar Grimalkin
A grimalkin, also known as a greymalkin, is an Linguistic conservatism, archaic term for a cat. The term stems from "grey" (the colour) plus "malkin", an archaic term with several meanings (a low class woman, a weakling, a mop, or a name) derived ...
in 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 ...
. 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
A polydactyl cat is a cat with a congenital physical anomaly called polydactyly (or polydactylism, also known as hyperdactyly), which causes the cat to be born with more than the usual number of toes on one or more of its paws. Cats with this ge ...
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
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 ...
, which then sold the printed pattern as "The Tabby Cat" on half a yard of 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 hands ...
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 1893 Chicago World's Fair
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...
and in the windows of Wanamaker's
John Wanamaker Department Store was one of the first department stores in the United States. Founded by John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, it was influential in the development of the retail industry including as the first store to use price tags. ...
department store in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
. The toy's success led to other stuffed animals, including kittens, dogs, and bunnies. The Ithaca Kitty was especially known for its lifelike appearance and was allegedly used by farmers to scare away birds and by the Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...
police station to scare mice.
Writer Eugene Field
Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850 – November 4, 1895) was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. He was known as the "poet of childhood".
Early life and education
Field was born in St. Louis, Missour ...
said that the calico cat in his poem " The Duel" was inspired by the Ithaca Kitty.
See also
*Teddy bear
A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy b ...
* Sock monkey
A sock monkey is a stuffed toy made from socks fashioned in the likeness of a monkey. These stuffed animals are a mixture of folk art and kitsch in the cultures of the United States and Canada. The typical sock monkey is brown and white with ex ...
* Beanie baby
Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, m ...
References