Feistiest

Penguin

This is Margarete Steiff, founder of the Steiff Toy Company (They make mainly stuffed animals in case you didn't know)

She was paralyzed due to Polio and was discriminated against very much for growing up in conservative Germany in the 1840´s, the townspeople literally arguing her father should just let her drown one time because she would never be “of any use”

But she was very determined to make something of her life, when an operation meant to help her walk failed she said she had to find something else to focus on, so she started sewing dresses, more importantly she started sewing dresses with a sewing machine (because it was easier to handle with one hand) wich received major backlash because bigoted people don't like new things or disabled people doing things differently

Anyway she also made needle cushions to sell, and these were elephant shaped, She quickly realized that children love these things to play with, wich was a fairly new thing because most toys were made out of hard material or rag-dolls at the time, so stuffed animals really weren't a thing

Steiff loved the concept and quickly turned to make more “animal dolls”, she even asked her brother for help going to local Zoos sketching the animals so she could use it as reference

The concept quickly took of and She was able to found a company giving work to many more seamstresses in town, but then the economy crisis struck and the Steiff company was on the verge of closing down

The last hope was a toy fair, if they could sell a large number of stuffed animals there it might save the company, And they indeed did get lucky, because they meet an overexcited American who fell in love with the stuffed bears they had made, for they were so life like, the man bought the entire stock and ordered thousands more in advance wich saved the company