One hundred and thirty years ago, a cat-shaped pillow was the best Christmas present

A good number of Hungarians have spent the last few weeks frantically trying to find Christmas presents for family and friends, considering thousands of options.

Of course, there are hit products, so the decision was perhaps not so difficult for many – but not as easy as the XIX. in America at the end of the 20th century, where many people bought a cat-shaped pillow.

For the root of the story, you have to jump back in time to the early 1890s, when a toymaker and seamstress living in Ithaca, New York, Celia Hazlitt Smith decided to make a pillow with their own cat, Caesar Grimalkin gives the inspiration.

The development of the figure gave a lot of impetus to the final result: to capture the shape of the animal, his sister-in-law, the painter and children’s book illustrator Charity Smith asked for his help, but the animal didn’t have the heart to sit behind the canvas long enough, so Caesar finally had to be taken to a photography studio to be photographed, after which the painting was completed, and in October 1892, the final result was patented under the name Ithaca Kitty, after his birthplace.

Oh my gosh, I’ve seen the “Ithaca Kitty” stuffed toy in old photos but never knew the story behind them. They were inspired by this wonderfully polydactylous cat, Caesar Grimalkin! pic.twitter.com/jbeZckv5af

— Cats of Yore (@CatsOfYore) April 4, 2023

Celia soon sold the design to Arnold Print Works in the state of Massachusetts, which produced the pattern for only ten cents, and people could sew it at home and fill it with whatever filling they wanted.

The Victorian Historian

The animal that suddenly became America’s most famous cat was polydactyl, so its paws had room for more toes than usual – in this case seven on both fronts – but the woman deemed this too disturbing, so the final result was only 5-5 at the front and 5 at the back and we find 4 toes.

The idea brought unexpected success: nearly 200,000 were sold during the Christmas period of 1892, and after its introduction at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, this number only continued to grow, and the plush toy fever began in the United States, which it lasted until the 1910s.

Google Patents The patent description – its protection expired in October 1909.

Some of the customers saw the product, which was soon sold as the Tabby Cat instead of the Ithaca Cat, not as a toy or an element of home decoration: it was so lifelike that many farmers used it as a scarecrow on their land, and wanted to scare away mice in police buildings.
The question is whether they were successful, but it is certain that both ideas must have been a funny sight.

The full story was presented by The Victorian Historian:

2024-12-18 09:11:00