Description
This is William. H. Taft, 27th President of the United States.
He held office from March 4, 1909 – March 4, 1913. Taft was the largest man (in poundage) ever to be elected President, the only person to become both a president and a Supreme Court Justice, and his First Lady Helen Herron Taft was instrumental in bringing the famous cherry trees from Japan to Washington D.C.
In 1908, Taft beat out William Jennings Bryan for the Presidency. At the time, mass toy manufacturing was a burgeoning market, aided largely by the booming popularity of Roosevelt’s teddy bear. Despite the bear’s success, industry eggheads believed the teddy craze would die once Roosevelt left office. So manufacturers looked to Taft for its successor. . .
That story begins, unsurprisingly, with Taft at the dinner table.
In January 1909, the president-elect was honored at a banquet in Atlanta. At Taft’s request, the main course was “possum and taters”—a toasty pile of sweet potatoes topped with an 18-pound whole cooked opossum. (Taft gobbled up the roasted marsupial so quickly that a nearby doctor advised him to slow down.) When Taft’s belly was stuffed, local boosters presented the president-to-be with a small plush opossum. The toy, they told Taft, was destined to be the next big thing—it was going to replace the teddy bear.
They dubbed it “Billy Possum”.
The gift pleased Taft—as did the dinner. The next day, he told reporters, “Well, I certainly like possum ... I ate very heartily of it last night, and it did not disturb in the slightest my digestion or my sleep.”
But what Taft saw as food, his supporters saw as money. The teddy bear boom had been profitable, and Taft’s supporters were confident the new toy could become the next fuzzy fad. They imagined America’s children tossing away their teddies, flocking to the closest storefront to get their hands on a plush opossum. Soon the market was flooded with Billy Possum postcards, pins, and posters.
But it was all a massive flop. Billy Possum didn’t even last a year—the craze died by Christmastime.
The teddy bear survived. But how?
Clawstripe
JanitorIn essence, Billy Possum was an attempt to give President William Taft (1909-1913) a fursona. Despite the success of the teddy bear (inspired by Taft's predecessor Theodore Roosevelt, who actually hated being called "Teddy"), it appears toymakers believed it wouldn't last, thus sought to popularize an opossum as a replacement. The attempt flopped within a year.
Addendum: I added in the description from the linked DA page.
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